Operation: Nyx'd Potential

[Foxenarund]

Tenno, one of our own is in dire straits!

Nyx, the Mental Manipulator; the greatest asset we have against the onslaught of deadly mind-affecting monsters from across the void; she's stuck in a loop! Years of combating the subversions of the Sentients; constant battles against the pseudo-organized anarchy of the Archons; and now a new foray unto the unexplained whispers - only an esper could understand. Nyx's psychic hand spares no mind from its all-encompassing grasp..

Until now.

Nyx has been stunted by a terrible aura infused upon the common enemy: so-called Eximus units. Worse yet, a technique of supreme-guard blockades her mental probes, forcing the brunt of her own wrath inward, and driving operators from her frame.

But not all hope is gone.

We need only dedicate our own mental energy back into the well of her psychic pools.

--

Today, we'll be going over Nyx, her capabilities as a frame, and how effective her abilities are.  We'll delve into their common points of usage, and later, how we might improve them. I'd like to first address what I believe to be most pressing component plaguing her gameplay loop: 

EXIMUS UNITS, or enemies that employ the overguard mechanic. Most if not all of Nyx's abilities have a negligible impact upon overguarded enemies. Let this idea baste in your mind, as if Nyx were controlling it!

In the meanwhile, let us take a look at the first of her abilities:

 

MIND CONTROL

I am sure mind control was likely an early bane mod against the developers at Digital Extremes. It presented a unique situation wherein a player might completely throw the balance of the traditional gameplay loop.. well, out the window. But the enemy is the window. That being said, today, we have a Mind Control that has been stunted and neutered; its purpose was to quickly remove key enemies on the battlefield, but one can no longer achieve this effect on those most powerful enemies (eximus units) without first dedicating the effort to destroying their greatest defense: overguard. There are also a nondescript amount of enemies that simply are either unaffected by Mind Control, or has its effectiveness cut in half, or quartered, a notion which simply exists with no benefit to the Nyx for utilizing the energy to cast it. Essentially: a completely useless ability (in those cases).

In order to combat this, Mind Control's subject was given a large damage bonus, under the condition that one has a suitable weapon to dump a large amount of damage into said subject (during the initial stun of mind control). In my opinion, this added mechanic is obtuse, difficult to understand for those trying out Nyx for the first time, and does not provide an adequate enough benefit to be visible in even the most extremely modded cases.

Mind Control, does, however, excel at creating an invulnerable bullet sponge that enemies may or may not shoot at. And, if you happen to mind control the right fellow, you may get a few more spawns that become Tenno-aligned. The issue, then, becomes hoping your newfound units provide something of use.

MIND FREAK Augment

Mind freak provides an additional amount of damage to mind controlled units. Potentially significant, but it does nothing to ease in creating a more powerful unit mechanically, and does not assist in ensuring that unit performs.

 

TL;DR

+Targeted bullet sponge creation*

+/-- RNG/AI dependent effectiveness *(Including at being a bullet sponge)

-Can NOT be used on enemies with overguard without first removing overguard

-Functionally negligible usage/effectiveness on a poorly defined/elaborated upon number of enemies (some enemies are unaffected entirely, some enemies are affected in a diminished fashion)

-Enemy radiation procs may end Mind Control early, similar to how a nullifier might

-Augment does not address the main issues of the ability, or significantly change how the ability is utilized, and does not provide enticing enough benefit to slot

 

PSYCHIC BOLTS

Once considered Nyx's worst ability, it is now what most would call her best ability. I don't think I particularly agree, but I believe it is very powerful. My main point of contention with it, however, is that I feel it does not adequately fulfill Nyx, conceptually. How does a psychic jab sever armor, or remove shields? That's what it does, by the way. With a moderate investment into strength, Psychic Bolts can completely remove typical defenses (shields and armor), and on the negligible side, moderately slow infested units. It can also remove some auras that infested units emanate. Nice and simple.

The largest issue other than subjective conceptual interpretation would be: tacked on duration limits for this debuff, and the inability to increase the amount of bolts Nyx fires, which is always* locked at six. Worse yet, you can NOT have multiple stacks of six enemies affected by Psychic Bolts; if casted again, the previous debuff will be instantly removed. Additionally, its range is locked and cannot be improved upon; this is compensated for by being a "line-of-sight" move, up to 60ish meters. Fittingly, Psychic bolts also has no immediate impact on eximus units, or enemies with overguard; they are not stunned by the bolt, and they do not react to it whatsoever. However, the enemy DOES have the armor/shields removed from them UNDERNEATH the overguard. Meaning: Psychic bolts does NOT assist in dispatching eximus units until overguard has been contended. Oh, and another issue: Psychic Bolts does not remove full shields/armor from Sorties with relevant ENHANCED modifiers, regardless of strength. I can't fathom as to why this is, but it feels on the end of needless bullying.

Psychic Bolts has immense, simplistic application across a large variety of potential enemy. The effectiveness of which can be contested, depending on how one plays, but on its own: powerful. Most people would likely agree that the easiest or most common application would be when dealing with steel path acolytes. Unfathomably easier, with even incredibly weak weaponry. A gratifying surprise.

PACIFYING BOLTS Augment*

Pacifying Bolts is a mod that simultaneously and phenomenally compensates for the original ability's weakness, but also adds fluff that provides nothing new to Nyx's kit. The reason why one would utilize this mod is for the increased amount of bolts, thereby leading to more defense-stripped enemies. However, it only increases the amount by three, with the additional benefit of stunning enemies for 10 seconds, dependent upon duration mods. The new amount of bolts is always locked at nine with this augment.

 

TL;DR

+100% defense strip with moderate strength investment

+One-handed and can be utilized during other actions (like reloads)

+Quick and snappy

+Staggers enemies on hit

++/- Augment adds much needed bolt amount and applies a stun, the latter of which is a redundancy for Nyx's kit (the most compelling reason to use Pacifying Bolts is not to pacify)

-Defense strip lasts for a paltry amount of time (affected by duration)

-Defense strip is immediately removed upon additional casts of Psychic Bolts

-Does NOT remove overguard, but does remove armor/shields underneath overguarded enemies (NO IMMEDIATE EFFECT ON OVERGUARDED ENEMIES)

-Does NOT fully affect the shields/armor of respectively enhanced Sortie enemies (diminished effectiveness)

 

CHAOS

Nyx's bread and butter. And her most controversial ability! Ah, how far we've come. Chaos is a decently high-range move that does absolutely nothing except: afflict an area of enemies with radiation+. This brand of Nyx-sponsored radiation coerces enemies into having a larger priority for shooting at things OTHER than Nyx and her allies, although therein lies the issue of AI and RNG once more. Sometimes enemies will still target Nyx, and sometimes stray bullets will still harm her. The duration is also decently high, but has less of an impact, because Nyx usually wishes to dispatch her enemies whilst they're in-fighting. Similarly to Mind Control, it is esoteric as to what enemy or entity can be precisely affected by the whole of Chaos' radiation+ (via diminished duration, or at all), but to a far less noticeable degree given its status as a crowd control AoE, and that the enemies that ARE affected will still draw fire from others. And there's the good: enemies will fire upon one another for a certain amount of time. Those enemies will also be affected by a short stun before they start fighting.

Now for the bad. Chaos, much like Psychic Bolts, can not be casted multiple times to affect multiple groups of enemies. If Nyx casts Chaos, only those within its range will be affected. If Nyx moves and casts Chaos again, all those previously affected will immediately lose Nyx brand radiation if they're out of range, and all those in the new range will be affected. Prior to the Eximus update, Chaos also applied to those units, but now eximus units, and those with overguard, are NOT affected by Chaos in any form or fashion. These units will fight their former allies, but will prioritize Nyx and her allies as per usual. Chaos, in essence, is entirely useless when employed against any enemy with overguard; this is incredibly and painfully emphasized in scenarios wherein eximus units are common. Finally: enemies will find it very difficult to dispatch one another for the vast majority of uses; you are effectively stalling the enemy. This stalling can come at a cost in a large variety of game modes in which spawning is limited, and removing those enemies is paramount.

Chaos truly shines in situations wherein eliminating the enemy is not an objective, and not required in any facet. This means it mostly shines in game modes such as void flood, and fringely during alchemy, or disruption runs. Others find Nyx's Chaos assists greatly during interception, but I disagree; enemies have far higher priority of capturing objective nodes regardless if they themselves are affected by Chaos, or their allies are affected by Chaos. In essence: Chaos does little to prevent interception nodes from being captured. One caveat being niche situations where one might corral a large group away from any objective node.

CHAOS SPHERE Augment

Less of a sphere, more of a mine. Chaos Sphere acts as a shrinking ring that affects all enemies that walk into it with Nyx brand radiation. The problem is that Chaos is shrunk down considerably, and quickly dissolves based on duration. The largest problem is that (aside from cutting range), if an enemy is somehow cleansed of Chaos, they will NOT be affected by it again, even they are within the ring created by Chaos Sphere. It shrinks so fast that often outpaces enemies walking toward it, (if they're not shooting at Nyx from outside of the range).

TL;DR

+Highish range, highish Duration mass-CC/stall

+/- Provides breathing room to recover, although dependent on RNG and eximus concentration

-Can lead to stalling enemies and bunching them up in areas where it could be detrimental to overall game mode ("losing" enemies in survival)

-Eximus units/overguarded enemies completely unaffected

-Can not be casted without dispelling the previous cast

-Some enemies ambiguously unaffected, or partially affected

-Enemies very unlikely to defeat one another

 

ABSORB

Dear Tenno, have you have heard of a "DM (Dungeon Master) spell?" 

A DM spell is a term derived from an ability that has very little functionally when employed by the player (Nyx), but incredible functionality when employed by the game creator (DE). Absorb has had many ups and downs, many, many alterations good and bad, but ultimately, it remains an ability that will always be better utilized by the Stalker, or Void Angels, than by anything Nyx could feasibly do, ever. In my humble opinion, Tenno, Absorb is Nyx's worst ability, and it's not even close. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Absorb allows Nyx, when activated, to sit and absorb any and all damage. Nyx maintains invulnerability whilst doing so, but she is entirely immobile. Absorb passively generates damage and channels, losing Nyx her energy in the process. Nyx loses more energy the more damage she absorbs. At the end of the ability, she explodes for all of that damage in a radius, maximum 50 meters, no matter how modded range is. Afterward, she is then damage-buffed by a certain amount dependent on the absorb total. As a show of good faith, and because I believe it's a glitch, I will describe what I believe to be the strongest aspect of Absorb. One that I've used since long before coptering was replaced. When Nyx casts Absorb in the air, and then exits the ability, her jump is reset. She can jump infinitely, albeit slowly, to any height, because of this. My one bonus, lost to time - resurfaced before you now. Please, spare it. Anyway, outside of that, Absorb also serves as an excellent exploratory tool; it can destroy boxes and loot through walls, allowing one to easily distinguish between standard loot and rep drops. And, on the upside, when Nyx leaves Absorb, she knocks down all enemies* in the radius (except ambiguous enemies, and overguarded units).

And now.. for the bad. Absorb does very little damage, and only reliably kills low level infested enemies. One would then argue: just absorb more damage. Ah, but absorbed damage is not affected by ability strength at all. You must sit and wait for the enemy to strike you, however long that takes. With weaker enemies, but not VERY weak, this could take a full minute of sitting, or longer before it dispatches anything. If it even does. Another painful issue is the sheer amount of energy taking damage drains. 8 energy per 1000 damage. This can be reduced, but how much health and armor do enemies have into the higher levels? The result is a lackluster ability that provides little benefit in using across all levels of play; it's only fun to sit in a bubble sometimes, and this isn't one of the times. Absorb is a long defunct panic button that doesn't do a very good job at consoling its user. Exiting Absorb leaves you incredibly vulnerable to everything outside of its range, and the dreaded eximus units; Absorb does not affect overguard past the sparse amount of damage given to them. The damage is negligible, the knock down does not work, and they are free to walk straight up to Nyx mid-explosion and ask how she plans to deal the complexities of fast-paced space ninja parkour. The scenario in which Absorb is capable of dealing with enemies is far, far and away removed from reality, and too niche to consider.

There's some niche application when it comes to protecting others and objectives, but it is unreliable in performing so; many projectiles and explosions push past or through Absorb to the nearest THING Nyx might be protecting. There is something to say about Absorbing over allies, but one could also just go into Operator form and damage be similarly slip through. A newbie friendly alternative, maybe. It may be more effective to simply cast Chaos, however.

Spoiler

And that's a shame. To break the façade of writing, one my favorite moments in Warframe was when I first encountered the Stalker using Absorb. I ran right up to him and ABSORBED his Absorb. Granted, I only absorbed something in the range of 400 damage, but it was cool.

SINGULARITY CONCLAVE/PVE Augment

One of the least utilized augments ever, anecdotally. For fairly good reason. Singularity draws people into absorb at a rate of 15m/s. Every three seconds. It encourages sitting in absorb, and the level at which it pulls PvE enemies in leaves much to be desired. Good for conclave, probably. But essentially nonexistent against anything else.

ASSIMILATE Augment

Ah, the limiter has been removed. No longer is Nyx confined to the bubble; she is now confined to a crawl. And a roll! Assimilate is the epitome of an augment that works on its own, for its own merits, because it doesn't make absorb good, it just allows Nyx to move whilst invulnerable. And makes absorb as an ability, far worse. Very, very low explosion radius. It seems familiar, somehow. Being invulnerable is pretty good. Even one doesn't really use this BECAUSE of Absorb.

TL;DR

+Exploratory benefits (Infinite jump, blowing up resources through walls)

+Assimilate augment provides invulnerability at the cost of thinking about revenant moving very slowly

+Fairly reliable at dispatching low-level infested

+/- Stationary, nonactionable invulnerability

+/- Stationary invulnerability inconsistently protects units/allies when absorbing over them

-Incredibly ineffective at dispatching nearly everything else

-Long, long absorb times for any reliable gain or destruction

-Very short weapon buff for comparatively long absorb times

-Incredible vulnerability if encountering enemies outside of range, or overguarded units (or enemies unaffected by stagger/knockdown)

-Energy hog

 

NYX'S PASSIVE

Enemies are 20% less accurate when targeting Nyx.

It's hard to gauge the effectiveness of this passive. Sometimes it might feel like nothing is hitting Nyx, ever, and other times it may feel akin to a never-ending barrage of death and violence inflicted upon the very psychic tendrils wrapping Nyx's delightfully green-hued neck. But, it should be said that it doesn't affect enemies with weapons that have NO accuracy in the first place. So it may not do anything in many circumstances.

TL;DR

+Occasionally feel untouchable

+/- Inconsistent

-Doesn't apply to a large variety of enemy

 

NYX, MY BELOVED

Generally, Nyx is a warframe that wants for just about everything. She wants for survivability, she wants for energy efficiency, she wants for ability strength, range, and duration, and for many current players, she wants for augment space. Nyx is spread thin, and the reward is contested efficacy. It feels like there's nothing particularly special or unique about her. As has been her place for many, many years. 

"Why mind control, when I can just throw down a specter?"

"Why bring Psychic bolts as NYX when I can just use Mag's Crush Augment, or use corrosive, or heat, or.. "

"What use chaos when we can just EXTERMINATE 'em all?"

"Why would I bring a Nyx, when I have Loki with Irradiating Disarm?"

"Ever heard of the Epitaph? Kuva Nukor? Insert strong weapon here?"

"Why play Nyx at all, when we have Revenant?"

But not all is lost. Nyx may be suited to older Warframe, she may struggle - and that sentiment may be reflected in the amount of people that play her, but she certainly shines in one aspect. In that delightfully sparse niche wherein everyone is struggling, hiding or running away, and the tide of battle has wrought what feels like unwinnable odds. A gleaming ring of psychic cling, and suddenly, the battle turns. Maybe slowly, but surely. Lower mastery players find her uninteresting, and higher mastery players find her insufficient, but for the player that seeks to help those in small victories, seemingly placed into their own hands, of their own design?

That objectively negligible, but subjectively beautiful scenario?

It's pretty darn great, I tell ya h'wat.

Oh, and she's really good in that niche position wherein weapons aren't powerful enough to completely outpace her kit.

TL;DR

=Excalibur knockoff looks kind of weird, but I like her

=Subjectivism

-Debatable efficacy

-Mod and stat STARVED

 

ONTO BANDAID FIXES

The next section shall be small-scale solutions that might fix or alleviate many of the problems faced by Nyx as a character. These will be designed in such a way that I believe would be approvable by those in development at DE, in much the same way Absorb was given a random buff weapon buff, for example.

 

MIND CONTROL BANDAID

I think the simplistic solution is far more simple than anybody ever realized. What if we have Nyx benefitting for mind controlling, as opposed to her target?

Proposal: Nyx receives x% DMG increase proportional to her mind controlled unit's increase for as long as it is under her control (entire duration of mind control)

Alternative proposal: Nyx receives increased shields/armor/health based on corpus/grineer/infested mind controlled target. These benefits are also increased proportional to the damage of the unit.

Both of these can be spun in interesting ways, conceptually. Nyx is ripping the knowledge from their brains and optimizing her psychic throughput by using them as a conduit for her power. It gives Nyx a benefit for using mind control that isn't reliant on the effectiveness of something out of her control, and I believe that to be the most important bandaid.

A cry for help: Allow mind control to affect overguarded eximus units. Potentially other overguard enemies. Provide a general benefit for when mind control ambiguously fails to affect an enemy (potentially by firing a psychic bolt at them).

Mind Freak: Simple augment. Simple change. Increase mind controlled subjects power, increase nyx's power. Or turn this whole concept into mind freak entirely.

 

PSYCHIC BOLTS BANDAID

Why is Psychic Bolts here, Foxen? Isn't it good enough?

Well, I don't like it. It doesn't make sense (to me). Did I use my psychic powers to make you take off your armor? ;) 

You know what makes more sense to me?

Proposal: Change shield/armor stripping to damage vulnerability. Add scaling to bolts (ie. range increases amounts of bolts), or any of the options below for improved scaling.

Alternative token proposal: Make armor stripping permanent, no debuff duration.

Alternative-r token proposal: Enemies affected by defense strip debuff give their debuff to nearby enemies upon death, up to six.

Alternative-est token proposal: Allow multiple sets of enemies to be afflicted by the defense debuff, without canceling the other debuffs.

Conceptually, I believe that someone that has been slapped in the psyche with void-psychic power is more likely to subconsciously throw themselves into harm's way far more believable than rending armor and shields entirely. Psychic energy slamming into another enemy's head after another falls is conceptually believable to me.

Sortie Fix: Allow Psychic bolts to work in their entirety on Sortie enhanced enemies.

Pacifying Bolts: Incentivize the pacifying part. Each enemy pacified improves Nyx's ability strength, which would in turn increase an enemy's damage vulnerability.

 

 

CHAOS BANDAID

MANDATORY BANDAID: Allow Chaos to affect overguard/eximus units akin to how RADIATION affects eximus units. If that's not feasible, simply affect them with the REGULAR radiation status effect upon casting.

Proposal: Enemies afflicted by Chaos do substantially more damage to other enemies afflicted with chaos, with the exception of eximus units, and have much, much higher threat level for one another (enemies will NOT pursue objectives like interception).

This change would decrease the stalling introduced by Chaos. I figure actual, literal mind-probing is much more dangerous than a radiation proc.

Alternative proposal: Nyx and her allies do significantly more damage to enemies afflicted by chaos. Allows for a more direct benefit to players at the cost of redundancy. Or stacking.

Chaos Sphere: I have never felt this augment worth using over the necessity of Nyx's stat hunger. Or stronger augments. Simple stat bumps might suffice. Or chaos sphere centralize upon enemies (ie. enemies are the walking sphere of chaos, which would spread chaos much faster to a centralized area.

Alternative CONJECTURE: We live in a society. We also live in a strong status weapon environment, one in which the radiation status can be easily and wholly applied across a large variety of enemies without having ever spent longer than a second or two. And it damages them. We have to ask ourselves: is the ability to wide-spread a comparatively worse version of radiation better than any weapon's ability to do so? That was a question being asked years ago, and it has only gotten substantially worse with Chaos' inability to affect overguarded units.

 

ABSORB

With my Absorb secret in the open, I humbly request that it is not patched. Although I perfectly understand if it is. The infinite jump really catapults Absorb. Anyway, Absorb is a bit tricky. I think it is truly the only ability of Nyx's that requires a true and full-on rework. Mind Control is a hot contender, though. But in an attempt to modernize, how about..

Proposal: First and foremost, allow invulnerability until Nyx fully exits Absorb and can move. Make all damage released from Absorb void damage. Or true damage. Remove 50m range cap. Speed up casting, or allow it to be affected by casting speed mods/shards. Peel off weapon damage buff for absorbing damage, give it to something else, or make it more impactful.

This would allow for the possibility of removing eximus/overguard units with absorb, and drastically improve its performance as well.

Singularity Augment: Pull in faster, constantly, and from farther away. Increase damage closer to Absorb's center. Vastly.

Assimilate Augment: Got me, Donald. I think Nyx should get to steal someone's ability for a change. Let's just make Assimilate subsume Mesmer Skin over Absorb. 

On a more serious note, maybe Assimilate can play to the name. Shooting Nyx's absorb mind controls enemies for a short duration. In addition to the whole moving really slow thing, or without it.

 

NYX'S PASSIVE BANDAID

Nyx's current passive feels like an arbitrary number. It's been through several changes, and ultimately, I think the previous iteration of her passive is superior, because at least it assisted in removing threats consistently at the cost of copying Loki. The largest issue would be that inconsistency, and just how little it affects many different types of enemy. Conceptually, it also doesn't make a lick of sense. I could see, maybe, that she's passively infecting the mind's of her attackers, swinging their aim in doing so, but she literally, physically does that with Chaos and Mind Control. It also, notoriously, disables itself when Nyx enters into Absorb. 

Proposal: When attacked, Nyx has x% chance to afflict her attacker with Chaos (or Mind Control). Nyx also does x% more damage to enemies affected by Radiation/Chaos.

With this change, Absorb has a moderate crowd control use, which with other changes, provides a(n arguably) substantial enough benefit damage-wise to justify sitting motionlessly in our favorite space-ninja shoot-n'-loot MMO-esque game.

 

AS CONFUSED AS HER ENEMIES

Nyx's core is just as confused as her radiation* afflicted enemies. A split dichotomy that never handles either side properly; are we to stall them, or are we to control them. Does she want them to attack themselves, or does she want them to attack herself? Every ability fulfills a niche that is not only covered near-entirely by many other Warframes, but is eclipsed by the mechanics of the game itself. As a result, she is only ever truly strong in the most sparing of scenarios, and about as effective as her weapons otherwise. All she's ever received is chaotically-stuck bandaids; for better or worse. But if we put enough on - we'll cover the sore eventually, right?

--

Thanks for coming to my Nyx talk, Tenno.

With your help, this operation will be a success.