Equinox Tweak Ideas

[lumine99]

Inspired by Mazifet's post on Equinox

To start of I'm a duality equinox enjoyer and most of my ideas are going to play more upon the concept of duality. Equinox's kit design was meant to either form dance, or focus on one of the forms. Which I found to be a waste of her kit. She is the only frame that can change form, change her kit, and play differently in each form.

• Keep the passive. Changing forms shouldn't break any of her channeling abilities.
• Metamorphosis ORIGINAL: Switch forms, temporarily gaining bonus shields and armor in Night-Form, or bonus damage and speed in Day-Form.

CHANGES: Each night and day forms should have the bonus baked in. No more duration. The bonus armor-shield/speed-damage are either strength capped or static. Instead give Metamorphosis status cleanse and remove the casting time. Make it cast like Saryn's Molt. Give Metamorphosis a 2-3 second cooldown instead.

Duality: Make the first ability a channeling. Drain 1 energy per second. Every 25 second you automatically switch to the other form, spawning a Duality Spectre for you for the duration. Affected by duration.

OR

Duality: Hold cast Metamorphosis to spawn a Duality Spectre without changing form and status cleanse. Tap casting Metamorphosis spawns a Duality Spectre, change form and status cleanse

Nothing much to comment on Metamorphosis, it is a form changer. The day and night form should have its buff baked in their passive to cement the difference between each form. No more buff degradation. Design wise Day should be decisive, while Night should be more graceful. First suggestion on duality embraces the concept of Duality on Equinox, while the 2nd one simply keep the current status quo, just smoothes the gameplay for people who wanted to stay in the current form. Both are a play on the concept of Duality.

• Rest & Rage  ORIGINAL: In Night Form targets are put to sleep. In Day Form targets become more vulnerable to damage.

CHANGES: Rest puts target enemies to sleep, while Rage increases the damage and speed of nearby allies.

Calm & Frenzy: Calm propagates the effect on kill OR change the ability into an aura, cuts the duration in half. Frenzy, every kill increase the effect OR duration of speed and damage buff every time you kill to a cap. Duration increase no longer works when in Night form.

Rest debuffs the enemy, while Rage buffs yourself and your allies. Originally wanted to have the augment to swap the ability, where Calm buffs you and your team, while Frenzy debuffs the enemies but it might make the flow weird and confusing. Augments shouldn't change an existing ability. Rest and Calm is actually really good as a crowd control, especially in high density enemy set up. Rage and Frenzy feels like it should be a complementing ability to both Day form ability and Night form's debuffs.

• Pacify & Provoke ORIGINAL: In Night Form reduces damage inflicted by nearby enemies. In Day Form increases Ability Strength of nearby allies.

CHANGES: Remove Pacify's damage reduction degradation. It is confusing for newer players, and less useful in open areas. Cap the energy drain like Gloom. Keep Provoke as is. Metamorphosis doesn't turn off the channeling.

Peaceful Provocation: Slow enemies affected with Pacify up to 40% in 10 seconds. Inversely affected by duration. Provoke converts damage done to enemies within the aura into up to 20% bonus Ability Strength.

Really there's nothing much to change with Pacify & Provoke. The ability is solid, except the degradation effect from Pacify. Which is a recurring theme within Equinox's kit. I suppose it is there to symbolize the Sun moving through from Northern-Southern hemisphere and vice versa. We can see similar concept with Gauss's Redline.

• Mend & Maim ORIGINAL: In Night Form, allies are healed with each nearby enemy killed. In Day Form, nearby enemies are bled and then subjected to a wave of slashing force.

CHANGES: Energy Transfer should be baked in the original ability. Switching forms shouldn't turn off the channeling. Give us + shield recovered per kill in bottom right of the screen like in Harrow's energy per kill, and increase the base shield restored per kill by a bit. Give us the total health pool indicator on bottom right like Harrow's Covenant (his 4th). Remove Maim damage degradation.

Energy Transfer: Changed to Energy Detonation. Upon switching forms detonates 50% of the health pool as healing or damage.

Switching forms shouldn't discard all of your accumulated damage/health pool. Again another degradation mechanic that can be found within Equinox's kit. Energy Detonation is just an idea to make her 4th ability a set and forget, something you can keep up as long as you can manage the energy drain.

Equinox has a theme in each form. Day form is basically a paladin, while Night form is a dark priest. Day form rallies your team, cutting into enemies and dealing damage. Night form stalls, slows, and disable the enemies. Had another Metamorphosis augment idea, where it combines both night and day form, that would give Equinox a 3rd form that she cannot change out of. But at that point it is a whole rework/overhaul instead of a tweak.