CC Warframes, and Loki - The GOD of Trickery

[UlyssesTheDM]

If you have not already seen Triburos' most recent video on Loki, please watch it here. In the video, Triburos touches on several points that are holding back other CC Warframes from being relevant, how to help CC Warframes to be more relevant in the game, and he gives excellent examples of how to make Loki a fun and effective Warframe to play with. I am floored by his great suggestions, and I would love to see a change for CC as a whole in the direction that he suggested.

 

Now, onto Loki.

Loki is presently a Warframe that focuses on solely stealth and CC, and I understand Pablo's perspective on the game focusing on DPS Warframes and that changing Loki to be a DPS would feel bad. While I do think this is a bigger issue regarding the state of several enemy units in the game, I do agree with Pablo. However, we do need some bigger changes to Loki to turn him into the trickster we know and love, and Triburos gave some awesome suggestions on how to do this:

Make Loki a support Warframe.

This suggestion from Trib is something I can really get behind, and I agree that Loki should not be a healer, but a buff/debuff support Warframe. Specifically Triburos' suggestions on how to tweak Switch Teleport were awesome to me. He suggested that Switch Teleport can be a Buff/Debuff tool that steals armor, overguard, nullifier bubbles, and maybe certain eximus abilities. How it should work in my opinion is a bit different from his suggestion of making the buff affect the whole team when he switch teleports an enemy to steal something from the enemy.

Switch Teleport: Loki switches places with an enemy, disorienting them and giving Loki a brief boost of speed. When switching places with an enemy, Loki also steals the enemy's armor and overguard for 45 seconds to give to himself. When switching with an ally or his Decoy, Loki replicates his armor and overguard buff on them, or if Loki doesn't have a buff stored he will copy the target's armor as a buff on himself. If Loki or a target ally or decoy already has overguard and/or an armor buff, the buff is refreshed and replaced if the new buff would be higher. When switching with an eximus unit, that eximus unit is silenced for the duration of this ability (which can be refreshed as long as Loki has energy available).

Radial Disarm: Instantly disarm enemies and pop nullifier bubbles. Disarmed enemies are forced into melee and cannot used ranged attacks, and nullifiers can no longer generate their nullifier bubble.

Invisibility: Loki becomes invisible to enemies for 6/9/12/15 seconds. (I think allowing him to be invisible for longer is fine. You can now get 30 seconds of invisibility with relative ease.)

Decoy: Loki deploys a holographic copy of himself, drawing enemy fire. (Just the tweaks from the most recent devstream loom great.)

 

Edited March 30 by UlyssesTheDM

[UlyssesTheDM]

9 minutes ago, UlyssesTheDM said:

When switching with an eximus unit, that eximus unit is silenced for the duration of this ability (which can be refreshed as long as Loki has energy available).

Just clarifying, in Triburos' video Warframe - Loki and the Death of Crowd Control he suggested that eximus powers could be stolen by switch teleport. I felt that may be a bit strong for switch teleport.

[Rathalio]

Have you tried the new updated Loki decoy? And its augment mod also? Because it's seriously strong and has nothing to envy other frames. And to compare with something close, Nyx's mind control sucks real hard in comparison.

And side note towards overguard, Loki with his augment for disarm has access to radiation procs that is one of the small few CC that works on overguard and eximus units. As well as his decoy now being relevant, it's still a priority target for enemies and in the meantime you are always invisible anyways (and Loki has the easiest to use and longest full invisibility spell already).

Today, Loki's disarm and Decoy are already "support" assets as CC is support, ain't it? Also Decoy's augments primes enemies well. And even though it's far from a very practical augment, switch teleport augment can prove useful as a support to protect allies like in archon hunt defence for example. You have your decoy, priming, and distracting enemies and even dealing some damage. Then, you switch teleport sometimes to refresh an invulnerability buff on the defence operative. And you overall disarm enemies making them quite less significantly dangerous. I feel like Loki is definitely good at a lot of stuff people don't seem to think about sadly.

 

/Personal opinion below/

I'm not such a big fan of how Triburos made his community suddenly vocal about Loki or CC in general tbh. A lot about what he says about CC and "DPS meta" is wrong or incomplete at best. And either I believe it would have been better to release his video earlier or wait the update and to try out the significant changes Loki just got. Like, it was legit to complain about DE not updating Loki unlike every other warframes pretty much. But now that DE gave him attention, you all come out and complain about him. And on many occurrences you didn't even try the changes...

[SneakyErvin]

I cant support the idea of him becoming a support since it just doesnt mesh with what Loki is thematically. It is already bad enough that the Loki they based the frame on seems more like Marvel Loki than myth Loki. And the disarm popping bubbles? No just no, we dont need another mindless map covering remove everything skill. It's more than enough it disarms enemies, what it could get is some interaction with infested potentially since they cant get disarmed. However, overall Loki is really solid after the patch, especially with the really strong augment he recieved. I havent tested it fully yet, but it improves his damage straight out the door, both by reflecting damage and spreading statuses for CO effects to benefit from. So far I've tested him with Nourish instead of Switch, but plan on checking out the chaos that can be provided by Breach Surge or Roar on him. Will likely do that tomorrow.

Also, stealing armor and overguard... I could see it as a thing for Loki but not something to give others, since sharing and caring isnt exactly Loki's path to glory. Unless you consider handing Höder a mistletoe coated arrow to shoot Balder with, or helping Surt burn all 9 worlds by becoming the helmsman of Naglfar. But anyways, the armor and OG would need to be a small fraction of the enemy value, since it wouldnt be interesting if he steals all several thousands of OG and thousands of armor.

Plus this whole thing with CC not being relevant or some CC frames needing help... I honestly can only name a single frame that could use help and that is Limbo due to how things interact with him, and he only has CC. All other CC works perfectly well within their kit, it is just that damage is better to handle things. But there is no practical way to actually improve CC, since it is already strong as hell. Nyx, another frame that is more or less just CC+survival with limited debuffing is fine regarding CC since it has innate confusion, meaning it works versus practically everything.

[Raarsi]

7 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

I cant support the idea of him becoming a support since it just doesnt mesh with what Loki is thematically

I get what Triburos was saying about it in basically having him offer something more beneficial to any party, but he seemed to be spitballing a little too hard on the defensive side of support in order to circumvent Pablo's argument about turning him into a DPS frame.

If I were to suggest anything for Loki...

• Decoy could have what Triburos suggested for it which was having it explode after its duration, dealing a damage multiplier based on how much damage it took.  This would require the summoned decoy having either far more health than what it currently does so that it doesn't fall over when a level 30 grineer sneezes on it or give it invincibility at the expense of a shorter duration.
• Switch Teleport could also do what Triburos suggested of stealing buffs, overguard and whatever else the enemy may have.  I do agree though that the idea of having those buffs be spread to nearby allies is pretty farfetched for him thematically, but I wouldn't be opposed to seeing an augment offer that for players who would want that particular playstyle.
• Radial Disarm could also come with a debuff on enemies hit by the wave that increases damage taken by 50% or so.  I'd also push for it being able to remove nullifier bubbles too, but I wouldn't be opposed to seeing that part come in augment form either.
• Loki's passive could be changed to something more like a failsafe, where whenever he falls below a certain health threshold, he automatically goes invisible and teleports backward a short distance while leaving a decoy behind.  Otherwise and above all else, he really does need his passive to be changed to literally anything else.

Ultimately and I think the major thing to be stressed from Triburos is that the worst thing DE could do with Loki is nothing.

[Joezone619]

CC really needs to be looked at by DE. TBH, i really like trib's nullifier idea, making them immune to damage abilities and instead be pierced by CC.

[SneakyErvin]

13 hours ago, Raarsi said:

I get what Triburos was saying about it in basically having him offer something more beneficial to any party, but he seemed to be spitballing a little too hard on the defensive side of support in order to circumvent Pablo's argument about turning him into a DPS frame.

If I were to suggest anything for Loki...

• Decoy could have what Triburos suggested for it which was having it explode after its duration, dealing a damage multiplier based on how much damage it took.  This would require the summoned decoy having either far more health than what it currently does so that it doesn't fall over when a level 30 grineer sneezes on it or give it invincibility at the expense of a shorter duration.
• Switch Teleport could also do what Triburos suggested of stealing buffs, overguard and whatever else the enemy may have.  I do agree though that the idea of having those buffs be spread to nearby allies is pretty farfetched for him thematically, but I wouldn't be opposed to seeing an augment offer that for players who would want that particular playstyle.
• Radial Disarm could also come with a debuff on enemies hit by the wave that increases damage taken by 50% or so.  I'd also push for it being able to remove nullifier bubbles too, but I wouldn't be opposed to seeing that part come in augment form either.
• Loki's passive could be changed to something more like a failsafe, where whenever he falls below a certain health threshold, he automatically goes invisible and teleports backward a short distance while leaving a decoy behind.  Otherwise and above all else, he really does need his passive to be changed to literally anything else.

Ultimately and I think the major thing to be stressed from Triburos is that the worst thing DE could do with Loki is nothing.

Decoy doesnt really need anything since the augment got added this patch. It scales well now and deals acceptable damage while spreading statuses. It handles trash and increases CO effects for Loki, which fits well since he is a frame relying on weapons anyways. And while it would be nice with some buff stealing, Loki doesnt really need it since he has two of the best defenses in the game overall, stealth and disarm. Plus now with the Decoy augment he has a further reliable distraction/defense option allowing him or his group to take out the tougher targets if they need to rely on control.

Radial Disarm could just get an eximus/ancient aura nullification similar to silence. That would give it some use versus infested aswell. Giving it a nullifier bubble removal seems out of place since it is still a WF ability that shouldnt be able to effect nullibubbles.

Passive definently needs a rework. Maybe the failsafe thing with a mechanic similar to Wukong that it can only trigger a couple of times throughout a mission. They could also give him a damage related passive. Something like +X% damage with silenced weapons and while attacking an enemy in melee while stealthed.

[Tiltskillet]

14 hours ago, Raarsi said:

Ultimately and I think the major thing to be stressed from Triburos is that the worst thing DE could do with Loki is nothing.

Now that's a failure of imagination! :P

[UlyssesTheDM]

On 2024-03-30 at 11:42 AM, Rathalio said:

Decoy's augments primes enemies well.

I am of the opinion that augments are sometimes used as bandaids for Warframes that have fallen into being irrelevant or underused. Yes, the augment is good, but the base frame needs some tweaks to be better.

On 2024-03-30 at 11:42 AM, Rathalio said:

(and Loki has the easiest to use and longest full invisibility spell already).

Excuse me while I jump over your comment as Wisp. Loki should be allowed to have a longer invis. I would argue that Ash should also. Oh yeah, and Ivara has a channel ability to turn invisible, Prowl, and she gets more than just invisibility and a stealth multiplier.

On 2024-03-30 at 11:42 AM, Rathalio said:

A lot about what he says about CC and "DPS meta" is wrong or incomplete at best.

Perhaps a lot, but not all. Just look at how DE neutered Dante this past update.

[UlyssesTheDM]

On 2024-03-30 at 12:10 PM, SneakyErvin said:

And the disarm popping bubbles? No just no, we dont need another mindless map covering remove everything skill.

It doesn't remove everything though? It doesn't deal damage, it doesn't remove any enemies. I don't see anyone complaining about Saryn, Mag, Ember, or Kullervo with their ability to wipe maps.

On 2024-03-30 at 12:10 PM, SneakyErvin said:

Also, stealing armor and overguard... I could see it as a thing for Loki but not something to give others, since sharing and caring isnt exactly Loki's path to glory. Unless you consider handing Höder a mistletoe coated arrow to shoot Balder with, or helping Surt burn all 9 worlds by becoming the helmsman of Naglfar. But anyways, the armor and OG would need to be a small fraction of the enemy value, since it wouldnt be interesting if he steals all several thousands of OG and thousands of armor.

All good points here. I agree with you on this. Maybe at base he can steal like 50% of those values, even from Eximus.

On 2024-03-30 at 12:10 PM, SneakyErvin said:

I honestly can only name a single frame that could use help and that is Limbo due to how things interact with him, and he only has CC.

Yeahhhhh.....poor Limbo. Most of the time people who play Limbo have to walk on eggshells with their team as well lest DPS mains (which is probably the whole team due to the DPS meta) get POed at them.

On 2024-03-30 at 12:10 PM, SneakyErvin said:

But there is no practical way to actually improve CC, since it is already strong as hell.

Ummmmm....let CC affect Eximus for a short period of time like the Sentients and then they adapt? Let CC pop bubble boys?

 

[UlyssesTheDM]

On 2024-03-30 at 8:39 PM, Raarsi said:

I get what Triburos was saying about it in basically having him offer something more beneficial to any party, but he seemed to be spitballing a little too hard on the defensive side of support in order to circumvent Pablo's argument about turning him into a DPS frame.

If I were to suggest anything for Loki...

• Decoy could have what Triburos suggested for it which was having it explode after its duration, dealing a damage multiplier based on how much damage it took.  This would require the summoned decoy having either far more health than what it currently does so that it doesn't fall over when a level 30 grineer sneezes on it or give it invincibility at the expense of a shorter duration.
• Switch Teleport could also do what Triburos suggested of stealing buffs, overguard and whatever else the enemy may have.  I do agree though that the idea of having those buffs be spread to nearby allies is pretty farfetched for him thematically, but I wouldn't be opposed to seeing an augment offer that for players who would want that particular playstyle.
• Radial Disarm could also come with a debuff on enemies hit by the wave that increases damage taken by 50% or so.  I'd also push for it being able to remove nullifier bubbles too, but I wouldn't be opposed to seeing that part come in augment form either.
• Loki's passive could be changed to something more like a failsafe, where whenever he falls below a certain health threshold, he automatically goes invisible and teleports backward a short distance while leaving a decoy behind.  Otherwise and above all else, he really does need his passive to be changed to literally anything else.

Ultimately and I think the major thing to be stressed from Triburos is that the worst thing DE could do with Loki is nothing.

Awesome input, and these are solid tweaks to Loki's abilities. Gotta really agree with that final point from Trib too.

[UlyssesTheDM]

On 2024-03-31 at 10:13 AM, SneakyErvin said:

Decoy doesnt really need anything since the augment got added this patch.

Augment = Bandaid

On 2024-03-31 at 10:13 AM, SneakyErvin said:

Radial Disarm could just get an eximus/ancient aura nullification similar to silence. That would give it some use versus infested aswell.

I think it already does this to ranged eximus abilities like the electric eximus.

On 2024-03-31 at 11:26 AM, Tiltskillet said:

Now that's a failure of imagination! :P

No...no you are right, DE could also neuter Loki completely like they just did with Dante. Oof.

[SneakyErvin]

3 minutes ago, UlyssesTheDM said:

All good points here. I agree with you on this. Maybe at base he can steal like 50% of those values, even from Eximus.

That would be absurd amounts of too much if he would end up with it himself. A one use strip for OG that just removes 50% could work since they cant be disarmed when they have OG up. They could add something so Loki can steal up to say 20k out of those 50% or something, or a lower cap that scales with strength.

6 minutes ago, UlyssesTheDM said:

Ummmmm....let CC affect Eximus for a short period of time like the Sentients and then they adapt? Let CC pop bubble boys?

They were both made at different times to counter skills overall. So no reason to undo what they were made for.

2 minutes ago, UlyssesTheDM said:

Augment = Bandaid

Only if they are weak, which the last batch of augments werent.

4 minutes ago, UlyssesTheDM said:

I think it already does this to ranged eximus abilities like the electric eximus.

Possibly, havent checked on it much. all I know is in order for it to do anything versus infested you need the augment, which is bad in itself since it is radiation or well confusion, which is just an annoying effect overall. And now with decoy it is massively counter productive since you want enemies to attack the decoy.

[Rathalio]

3 minutes ago, UlyssesTheDM said:

I am of the opinion that augments are sometimes used as bandaids for Warframes that have fallen into being irrelevant or underused. Yes, the augment is good, but the base frame needs some tweaks to be better.

"Bandaids" that's an opinion I don't agree with in general. It's normal for me that augments are here to as a trade off for a mod slot to give you more functionality. And if it's enough to make the Warframe good in the meta, I don't see the issue. Especially since now with archon shards it's not that much of a cost anyways to slot an augment or two. But I guess it pales when sometimes DE release warframes that already do a bit of almost everything without the need of an augment, like Dante. But here that's more of a balance issue and consequence of a lack of "standards" sometimes on abilities effects and stats when they create a new warframe.

5 minutes ago, UlyssesTheDM said:

Excuse me while I jump over your comment as Wisp. Loki should be allowed to have a longer invis. I would argue that Ash should also. Oh yeah, and Ivara has a channel ability to turn invisible, Prowl, and she gets more than just invisibility and a stealth multiplier.

You have to aim glide with Wisp, which is far from being super practical to pull off. Especially when every time you land again they see you and shot at you again, and the instant you jump again there are often shots heading toward your direction if though you turn invisible again.

Ivara invisibility comes with huge restrictions. Not being able to sprint (if not on a cable) and bullet jumping is very high on the list of restrictions in warframe. Also Ivara technically owns 2 abilities that drains her energy over time and an exalted weapon that drains on shot, having her invisibility as a channelled ability doesn't really help her.

9 minutes ago, UlyssesTheDM said:

Perhaps a lot, but not all. Just look at how DE neutered Dante this past update.

As I said, incomplete at best. Just for the sake of citing some ; "new" game modes that push forward CC and utility oriented warframes more than pure DPS warframes: Mirror defence & Void cascade.

Also Dante's nerf once they fix the LoS check that are currently unreliable is a fair change. LoS is to be expected on anything imo. Killing enemies you don't even see through walls is just stupid. And the overguard in my perspective was kind of buffed. Because they nerfed the cap (which doesn't matter in higher level) and buffed the regeneration (which is the most important in higher level as you really only care about the gating and status immunity, the amount you get is kind of pointless outside of tanking some small damage).

Many people are getting super emotional over this and not constructive at all. You can even see that a few minutes after the patch there was already a few people crying "Dante feels awful" when they barely had the time to try it in a mission already. Just for the principle because they don't want to deal with it. And the nerf rn is bugged even so it's not even depicting what was intended by DE... Also Dante isn't here just to press 3 3 4. You have a very OP book to DPS with that has been buffed even?

[sXeth]

On 2024-03-30 at 11:42 AM, Rathalio said:

Have you tried the new updated Loki decoy? And its augment mod also? Because it's seriously strong and has nothing to envy other frames. And to compare with something close, Nyx's mind control sucks real hard in comparison.

And side note towards overguard, Loki with his augment for disarm has access to radiation procs that is one of the small few CC that works on overguard and eximus units. As well as his decoy now being relevant, it's still a priority target for enemies and in the meantime you are always invisible anyways (and Loki has the easiest to use and longest full invisibility spell already).

Today, Loki's disarm and Decoy are already "support" assets as CC is support, ain't it? Also Decoy's augments primes enemies well. And even though it's far from a very practical augment, switch teleport augment can prove useful as a support to protect allies like in archon hunt defence for example. You have your decoy, priming, and distracting enemies and even dealing some damage. Then, you switch teleport sometimes to refresh an invulnerability buff on the defence operative. And you overall disarm enemies making them quite less significantly dangerous. I feel like Loki is definitely good at a lot of stuff people don't seem to think about sadly.

 

/Personal opinion below/

I'm not such a big fan of how Triburos made his community suddenly vocal about Loki or CC in general tbh. A lot about what he says about CC and "DPS meta" is wrong or incomplete at best. And either I believe it would have been better to release his video earlier or wait the update and to try out the significant changes Loki just got. Like, it was legit to complain about DE not updating Loki unlike every other warframes pretty much. But now that DE gave him attention, you all come out and complain about him. And on many occurrences you didn't even try the changes...

To be fair, he was directly responding to a statement by the head gameplay designer that it was impossible to update Loki without making another armour stripping DPS. Like that’s a serious statement that does not bode well for the. future design of frames or variance of challenges ingame (and Pablo’s tweeted the same thing about Limbo too. And literally did so with Hydroid )

And sure they updated Decoy simultaneously, and give it a DPS boosting augment literally called “Damage” Decoy. (And randomized status is only logically presented as fodder for Condition Overload.) That really leans into the points made more then anything. In a vacuum it’s just an augment that adds new different utility,  but in context it’s a pattern.

Loki is better then most people think (although Titania can get the same utility of his 1+4 with just her 3, and it’s invulnerable), but that’s an aside to a concerning statement in reductive design from the #2 person in charge of the game.

Edited April 5 by sXeth

[UlyssesTheDM]

On 2024-04-05 at 9:48 AM, Rathalio said:

Bandaids" that's an opinion I don't agree with in general. It's normal for me that augments are here to as a trade off for a mod slot to give you more functionality. And if it's enough to make the Warframe good in the meta, I don't see the issue.

I did say that augments are sometimes used as bandaids. I think some augments are powerful enough to warrant a mod slot, and others should just be built into the base ability. An augment should be a highly beneficial trade-off in certain builds. To clarify further, I do not think that all augments should be built into their respective abilities, but some of them definitely should.

On 2024-04-05 at 9:48 AM, Rathalio said:

You have to aim glide with Wisp

As a Wisp main, I am telling you, you just have to jump. Aim gliding isn't necessary. Wisp's invis does not need buffed or changed, because it is a passive, not a core ability. It doesn't cost her energy, it just happens.

On 2024-04-05 at 9:48 AM, Rathalio said:

Ivara invisibility comes with huge restrictions. Not being able to sprint (if not on a cable) and bullet jumping is very high on the list of restrictions in warframe.

These are good points on Ivara. I still think it would be appropriate to give Loki and Ash a small buff from their invis abilities that isn't just a stealth multiplier though. I would like to hear some ideas from you on what can be added to Loki's and Ash's invis ability to buff them while invis.

18 hours ago, sXeth said:

To be fair, he was directly responding to a statement by the head gameplay designer that it was impossible to update Loki without making another armour stripping DPS. Like that’s a serious statement that does not bode well for the. future design of frames or variance of challenges ingame (and Pablo’s tweeted the same thing about Limbo too. And literally did so with Hydroid )

And sure they updated Decoy simultaneously, and give it a DPS boosting augment literally called “Damage” Decoy. (And randomized status is only logically presented as fodder for Condition Overload.) That really leans into the points made more then anything. In a vacuum it’s just an augment that adds new different utility,  but in context it’s a pattern.

Loki is better then most people think (although Titania can get the same utility of his 1+4 with just her 3, and it’s invulnerable), but that’s an aside to a concerning statement in reductive design from the #2 person in charge of the game.

I have very little to add here to this, and you are absolutely correct. We don't need Loki to be a DPS Warframe, but a utility/support Warframe. He should still be decent solo, being able to do some targeted armor stripping/stealing with Switch Teleport, as well as using Decoy to distract enemies from objectives. And of course, invisibility is pretty awesome, albeit a little bit redundant with the Decoy buffs.

Edited April 6 by UlyssesTheDM
Adding some things about Wisp invis not needing buffedand requesting some suggestions on how to tweak Loki and Ash invis to give them a buff while invis.

[UlyssesTheDM]

On 2024-04-05 at 9:38 AM, SneakyErvin said:

They could add something so Loki can steal up to say 20k out of those 50% or something, or a lower cap that scales with strength.

Yeah! A hard cap on it is probably a good idea so we aren't only working with a percentage. 😅 I'd say 20k for overguard and maybe 5k for armor.

Loki + Rhino would probably make Rhino even tankier.

 

Thinking about it further, Loki probably won't need his invis duration extended too much with him having the Switch Teleport ability to get him armor and overguard.

[SneakyErvin]

35 minutes ago, UlyssesTheDM said:

Yeah! A hard cap on it is probably a good idea so we aren't only working with a percentage. 😅 I'd say 20k for overguard and maybe 5k for armor.

Loki + Rhino would probably make Rhino even tankier.

 

Thinking about it further, Loki probably won't need his invis duration extended too much with him having the Switch Teleport ability to get him armor and overguard.

5k would be about 10 times (or more) too much considering how much plunder, rubble and defy and scarab armor grants, which is nowhere in those regions. I'd say something like +250 armor that scales with strength, meaning 500 at +100% strength and 750 at +200% strength if he really wants to build for it.

[Azamagon]

Joining the discussion about making Loki more supportive - sure, but I'd say make it more offensive and utility-based. I just don't feel it too fitting for a mischiefer to be so defensive. I think his Switch augment is pushing that far enough.

So, some suggestions:

Passive - Keep the wallcling bonus if you wish. But I'd also give him +50% weapon damage versus enemies he attacks in their back.

Decoy - Let him recast to remove it early (on holdcast, at least). On Decoy death/removal, make it blind nearby enemies briefly, opening them up to finishers.

Damage Decoy - Make the basic decoy (ie the non-enemy targetted one) also do the status-spreading when it is hit. Also, root the enemy if using the enemy-targetted version. Lastly, if enemies melee a decoy (either version), the status-application is applied in an AoE around the decoy.

Invisibility - Is fine. Maybe let us remove it early via a holdcast?

Hushed Invisibility - Either make this an exilus-augment, or make it add something extra (and rename it), like making it also grant added weapon status chance or something while Invisibility is active.

Switch Teleport - Make it also pull in enemies around a swapped enemy or Decoy (but not allies) at the end location. Preferably in a non-ragdoll fashion. Holdcast to swap with Decoy automatically, if within range.

Radial Disarm - On top of the disarm, also make it apply a duration-based debuff on all enemies in the radius (even affecting non-disarmable enemies), which does 2 things: 1) enemies suffer X% of their damage dealt back at themselves, converted to True damage-type, and 2) make them "silenced", ie unable to cast abilities.

----------------------------

If you wanna add even more offensive debuffs, like damage amplifiers and/or armor removal in his kit, sure, do that too - but I personally think it'd be a bit too much at this point, and they are slightly overused.

However, my suggestions try to keep the abilities distinct and synergetic in a "mischievous" way, mainly with the additions to the passive, Switch and Disarm:

Switch Teleport is all about positioning, so it also makes sense to have it help bundle enemies up.

Disarm is the weapon-tampering ability, so damage-reflection and ability-blocking (to force their attack) makes sense. It also makes its natural Decoy synergy even better (and further so with Damage Decoy).

The "backstab" passive also kinda ties the whole kit together - because other than crowd control for safety and shenanigans, WHY would you like to control them, or change your/their positioning? Well, this passive adds an answer to that: To potentially kill them faster (and the self-damage added to disarm directly helps with that too), which is more helpful in modern Warframe.

Edited April 8 by Azamagon

[UlyssesTheDM]

On 2024-04-07 at 7:36 PM, Azamagon said:

Passive - Keep the wallcling bonus if you wish. But I'd also give him +50% weapon damage versus enemies he attacks in their back.

OOOOH, I like the backstab damage idea! 💡 As long as the backstab damage is always on, and not just when hitting enemies from behind when in wallcling. Think like Bandit from Risk of Rain 2, but less extreme because Bandit always crits when hitting enemies from behind. I think the +50% weapon damage is enough to give Loki some sauce. It would be nice if it is universal faction damage on weapons to give us more DoT on weapon attacks from behind enemies.

 

On 2024-04-07 at 7:36 PM, Azamagon said:

Decoy - Let him recast to remove it early (on holdcast, at least). On Decoy death/removal, make it blind nearby enemies briefly, opening them up to finishers.

Radial Blind on Decoy Death??? Heck yeah! 💯 Let him cook!!!!

 

On 2024-04-07 at 7:36 PM, Azamagon said:

Switch Teleport - Make it also pull in enemies around a swapped enemy or Decoy (but not allies) at the end location. Preferably in a non-ragdoll fashion. Holdcast to swap with Decoy automatically, if within range.

A neat idea indeed, as long as it isn't a ragdoll pull.

 

On 2024-04-07 at 7:36 PM, Azamagon said:

Radial Disarm - On top of the disarm, also make it apply a duration-based debuff on all enemies in the radius (even affecting non-disarmable enemies), which does 2 things: 1) enemies suffer X% of their damage dealt back at themselves, converted to True damage-type, and 2) make them "silenced", ie unable to cast abilities.

I like the idea of Loki looming over enemies and asking, "Why are you hitting yourself?" 😂

 

On 2024-04-07 at 7:36 PM, Azamagon said:

The "backstab" passive also kinda ties the whole kit together - because other than crowd control for safety and shenanigans, WHY would you like to control them, or change your/their positioning? Well, this passive adds an answer to that: To potentially kill them faster (and the self-damage added to disarm directly helps with that too), which is more helpful in modern Warframe.

Agreed, this really pulls the kit together. It also gives Loki a reason to stay invisible as much as possible so he can get that sweet sweet backstab damage! Very fitting, and I love this!

Edited May 3 by UlyssesTheDM

[Mr.Holyroller]

On 2024-03-30 at 7:26 AM, UlyssesTheDM said:

If you have not already seen Triburos' most recent video on Loki, please watch it here. In the video, Triburos touches on several points that are holding back other CC Warframes from being relevant, how to help CC Warframes to be more relevant in the game, and he gives excellent examples of how to make Loki a fun and effective Warframe to play with. I am floored by his great suggestions, and I would love to see a change for CC as a whole in the direction that he suggested.

 

Now, onto Loki.

Loki is presently a Warframe that focuses on solely stealth and CC, and I understand Pablo's perspective on the game focusing on DPS Warframes and that changing Loki to be a DPS would feel bad. While I do think this is a bigger issue regarding the state of several enemy units in the game, I do agree with Pablo. However, we do need some bigger changes to Loki to turn him into the trickster we know and love, and Triburos gave some awesome suggestions on how to do this:

Make Loki a support Warframe.

This suggestion from Trib is something I can really get behind, and I agree that Loki should not be a healer, but a buff/debuff support Warframe. Specifically Triburos' suggestions on how to tweak Switch Teleport were awesome to me. He suggested that Switch Teleport can be a Buff/Debuff tool that steals armor, overguard, nullifier bubbles, and maybe certain eximus abilities. How it should work in my opinion is a bit different from his suggestion of making the buff affect the whole team when he switch teleports an enemy to steal something from the enemy.

Switch Teleport: Loki switches places with an enemy, disorienting them and giving Loki a brief boost of speed. When switching places with an enemy, Loki also steals the enemy's armor and overguard for 45 seconds to give to himself. When switching with an ally or his Decoy, Loki replicates his armor and overguard buff on them, or if Loki doesn't have a buff stored he will copy the target's armor as a buff on himself. If Loki or a target ally or decoy already has overguard and/or an armor buff, the buff is refreshed and replaced if the new buff would be higher. When switching with an eximus unit, that eximus unit is silenced for the duration of this ability (which can be refreshed as long as Loki has energy available).

Radial Disarm: Instantly disarm enemies and pop nullifier bubbles. Disarmed enemies are forced into melee and cannot used ranged attacks, and nullifiers can no longer generate their nullifier bubble.

Invisibility: Loki becomes invisible to enemies for 6/9/12/15 seconds. (I think allowing him to be invisible for longer is fine. You can now get 30 seconds of invisibility with relative ease.)

Decoy: Loki deploys a holographic copy of himself, drawing enemy fire. (Just the tweaks from the most recent devstream loom great.)

 

Loki still very strong its just that he doesnt nuke anything and the way you build him is kind of unconventional.

Stealing stats from swap teleport would be pretty cool.

Disabling nullifiers is a bit much. 

Combining Safeguard switch and damage decoy with subsumed mind control gives you complete immunity and an immortal decoy that spreads status effects.
 

[Azamagon]

3 hours ago, UlyssesTheDM said:

1) OOOOH, I like the backstab damage idea! 💡 As long as the backstab damage is always on, and not just when hitting enemies from behind when in wallcling. Think like Bandit from Risk of Rain 2, but less extreme because Bandit always crits when hitting enemies from behind. I think the +50% weapon damage is enough to give Loki some sauce. It would be nice if it is universal faction damage on weapons to give us more DoT on weapon attacks from behind enemies.

2) Radial Blind on Decoy Death??? Heck yeah! 💯 Let him cook!!!!

3) A neat idea indeed, as long as it isn't a ragdoll pull.

4) I like the idea of Loki looming over enemies and asking, "Why are you hitting yourself?" 😂

5) Agreed, this really pulls the kit together. It also gives Loki a reason to stay invisible as much as possible so he can get that sweet sweet backstab damage! Very fitting, and I love this!

1) Yeah, the idea was that it is a permanent bonus, not just while wallclinging.

2) Hehe, I mostly want it to give him access to finishers - he did finishers midbattle in some of the oldest WF videos, and imo it just fits him to do it via trickery like this.

3) Yeah, I was imagining it as a similar non-ragdolly pull that the Penta has with the Tether Grenades augment.

4) Hehe, exactly! It would also finally make it useful versus ALL factions, including the infested!

5) Yup! I'm so glad you liked it! :)

[UlyssesTheDM]

On 2024-05-03 at 4:13 PM, Azamagon said:

Yup! I'm so glad you liked it! :)

Wholesome Tenno moment 😌💯