Limbo Rework: Fixing the Rift Walker

[Joezone619]

Limbo is easily the least team friendly warframe by a long shot. He has many problems, most of them compounded by years of neglect by DE. With every update limbo gets less and less viable, and since overguard limbo's viability has been constantly at all time lows. Excessive amounts of of eximus units, units with overguard, and enemies that are just flat out rift immune has dulled limbo to the point of noveltee. Sure hes fun to use because dimensions and stuff, but he is no longer practical to use.

Objectively, limbo is no longer viable for most high level content. Yes he's still capable of it, but in the same way a warframe with no abilities and jacked out armor would also be viable. His abilities don't offer much advantage, especially in high level content where half the enemies are eximus units and the other half has overguard. Limbo is constantly being forced to expose himself to damage in order to harm enemies with overguard, negating the rift as a defensive force.

This rework aims to fix many of the issues limbo faces, and bring him up to par with the new frames of today.
Some of these problems include:
-Casting Speed
-Team Friendliness
-Defensive Powers/Ability
-Overguarded Enemies
-Rift Visibility

 

Miscellaneous
-Make ally players shoot through rift. Able to harm enemies regardless of rift status on both enemies and players. (Abilities and passives will be tweaked to account for non-limbo kills in the rift.)
-Change rift visuals for banished enemies, allies and players.
-Speed up casting animations for all abilities.
-Change damage type for all abilities to radiation.
-Limbo/allies can pick up item through the rift.

 

Passive
-Roll portals no longer banish allies, only limbo and enemies.
-Limbo himself must kill enemies to gain energy from kills in the rift.

 

1st: Banish
-Remove chain banish.
-Enemies & Allies are now banished in a cone radius.
-Cone radius is 50 degrees, and cannot be increased.
-Lower default range from 35m to 20m.
Helminth:
-Subsumed frames can look down and banish to banish themselves.
-Subsumed frames can no longer shoot through the rift.

 

2nd: Stasis
-Remove duration, change to a constant drain.
-Constant drain energy per second is based on how many enemies are in the rift.
-Overguarded enemies aren't counted towards drain.
-Limbo can still regenerate energy per second while stasis is active. (like equinox's 3rd, or dante's 1st)
-Limbo constantly emits cold proc in a radius while in the rift, slowing enemies with overguard. This forces limbo to be near overguarded enemies to slow them.
-Cold proc does not deal damage.

 

3rd: Rift Surge | Rift Cloak (3 Parter)
-Only one cloak can be active at a time.
-All cloaks are based on duration.
-The same cloak can be recast before the duration has ended to maintain the effects.

*Rift Guard*
-Gain damage reduction per enemy killed in the rift.
-Damage reduction is active both inside and out of the rift.
-Damage reduction caps at 90%.
-Damage reduction outside the rift is halfed, but will still increase separately from in-rift DR until it hits the cap.
(If you have 90% DR in the rift, you'll have 45% outside of the rift. Kills won't increase the 90% since its already at the cap, but they'll still increase the 45% until it matches the 90% cap.)

*Rift Torrent*
-Gain damage boost per enemy within a radius of limbo in the rift.
-Damage boost is only active while in the rift. (or) - Damage boost is halfed outside the rift.
-Damage boost has no cap.

*Rift Surge*
-Enemies killed by limbo in the rift release a radial banish effect.
-Radial banish range increased from 5m to 10m.
-Enemies can be killed anywhere in the rift.
-Enemies must be killed by limbo himself. Allies, explosive barrels, companions, etc don't work.

Augment: Rift Torrent | Rift Veil
-Change Rift Torrent to Rift Veil
-Rift Veil adds a fourth cloak which combines all of them but has 1/3rd of the duration and takes 3x the energy.

 

4th: Cataclysm
-Hold to refresh cataclysm duration and range.
-Nullifiers no longer deactivate cataclysm, however they will unbanish any enemies inside their bubble.
-Arbitration drones and necramechs can be banished via cataclysm.

Augment: Cataclysmic Continuum
-Increase duration gain to 1.5-2s/kill.
-Increase bubble range/undo shrinking effect with duration.

New Augment: Cataclysmic Aura
-Cataclysm surrounds and follows limbo.
-Halfs duration.
-Halfs range.

 

 

Extra: Rift Visual Suggestions
-Give banished enemies an icon above their head, similar to ash's 4th.
-Have limbo's hat float above enemy's/ally's heads, similar to revenant's mind control.
-Have enemies/allies emit pulses of large black waves, similar to nova's 4th.
-Surround the edges of the UI/Hud with black flames to indicate the player is banished, similar to void storms.
-Turn enemies/allies who are banished completely black with white flames when they are banished and you are not. Upon stepping on the rift, the effects clear and enemies/allies who are not banished are now completely white with black flames, inverting the effect.

 

 

Feedback and ideas are much appreciated.

Edited April 6 by Joezone619

[BoredFinno]

No, just no. Your rework like so many just kill his identity and playstyle, removes flavor and makes him similar to so many other frames. You are also trying to bend rules on an ability type just to fit Limbo.

2 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

-Make ally players shoot through rift. Able to harm enemies regardless of rift status on both enemies and players.

This literally undervalues any point of Rift and 2 dimensions existing. I talked about this before, rift itself isnt the problem, its its availability to other squadmates.

2 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

Passive
-Limbo himself must kill enemies to gain energy from kills in the rift.

This just makes him a worse Harrow, with exactly same problem as him. Rift is supposed to be a supportive mechanic, it rewards ALL players for interacting with it, not just Limbo. It's issue is as said before how unavailable it is to allies without cataclysm and general lack of information or understanding how to use limbo. Problem with this also is that you are forcing a non-dps, weapons platfrom frame to kill enemies in a game where most of the times, you are playing with someone who is gonna wipe the whole map by just looking at a tile; just like Harrow.

2 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

1st: Banish
-Remove chain banish.
-Enemies & Allies are now banished in a cone radius.
-Cone radius is 50 degrees, and cannot be increased.
-Lower default range from 35m to 20m.
Helminth:
-Subsumed frames can look down and banish to banish themselves.
-Subsumed frames can no longer shoot through the rift.

I'm not sure what you mean by chain banish. Banish as it is is completely fine and doesn't need any touching. Also disagree with helminth version. While its extremely niche, its not absolutely useless and one can make some specific builds with it. Allowing every frame to use rift in this way again undermines Limbo's value and uniqueness. Having some extremely niche abilities is absolutely and completely fine, not everything needs to be useful in every scenario. You won't use a hammer to unscrew a screw. 

2 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

2nd: Stasis
-Remove duration, change to a constant drain.
-Constant drain energy per second is based on how many enemies are in the rift.
-Overguarded enemies aren't counted towards drain.
-Limbo can still regenerate energy per second while stasis is active. (like equinox's 3rd, or dante's 1st)
-Limbo constantly emits cold proc in a radius while in the rift, slowing enemies with overguard. This forces limbo to be near overguarded enemies to slow them.
-Cold proc does not deal damage.

So, how would this actually work? You can regenerate energy at all times, or when nothing is affected by it? If its the former, you are bending the rules of how channeled abilities work and if its the latter, what is the point of it being a channel? Generally latter part of the rework also makes me question what the actual combo and control is with this. I really don't see what even is the benefit of turning this into a channel. Especially since everything else you mentioned is based on duration. And again, we want to walk away from abilities that drain energy per enemy, look at equinox: she is literally gutted cause her ability is just a worse gloom. They removed puddle completely and reworked grendel's feast just so we dont have any more of these, as they are not fun to upkeep and are generally problematic to maintain. And why would you want to make cold procs closer to eximus units? This just puts a paper thin frame in more of a potential danger. Why not have it applies to any eximus under stasis? Rift is supposed to be limbo's unique way of tanking, y undermine that? Let's also mention that all abilities that affected overguard no longer do, for the sake of some band aid consistency. Its not the ability that should change for the sake of overguard, its overguard that has to change for the sake of many other cc reliant frames.

2 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

3rd: Rift Surge | Rift Cloak (3 Parter)
-Only one cloak can be active at a time.
-All cloaks are based on duration.
-The same cloak can be recast before the duration has ended to maintain the effects.

*Rift Guard*
-Gain damage reduction per enemy killed in the rift.
-Damage reduction is active both inside and out of the rift.
-Damage reduction caps at 90%.
-Damage reduction outside the rift is halfed, but will still increase separately from in-rift DR until it hits the cap.
(If you have 90% DR in the rift, you'll have 45% outside of the rift. Kills won't increase the 90% since its already at the cap, but they'll still increase the 45% until it matches the 90% cap.)

*Rift Torrent*
-Gain damage boost per enemy within a radius of limbo in the rift.
-Damage boost is only active while in the rift. (or) - Damage boost is halfed outside the rift.
-Damage boost has no cap.

*Rift Surge*
-Enemies killed by limbo in the rift release a radial banish effect.
-Radial banish range increased from 5m to 10m.
-Enemies can be killed anywhere in the rift.
-Enemies must be killed by limbo himself. Allies, explosive barrels, companions, etc don't work.

 So, you basically are adding tribute to Limbo. Many issues i take from this:

• Cycling through Tribute and rebuffing with it is already so damn annoying, most ppl just use one of the 3
• Rift guard is a straight rip-off of Citrine's ability. Its not unique, it undermines the unique form of limbos tanking and is generally uninspiring to have ANOTHER 90% DR frame. It makes it stale. Game needs diversity to remain fun.
•  Generally having Rift Torrent separate from rift surge is questionable. You want to have surge to keep enemies in the rift, but you dont have damage bonus(in case of your rift surge version) to do it efficiently? Whats the point? If anything, this destroys the fluid gameplay of Limbo for something that i cant even see what the point of the change is. I can't see the fluid game loop here.
• Having rift surge in this way, idk... Generally one would want to have this on for fluid gameplay, but then they sacrifice potential damage buff which is usually a must on a frame or a damage reduction, whose point i already can't see since being in a different plane already protects you from most things, other than eximus abilities and some rare units. It also defeats the surge's utility. Surge as it is is great when you really want to lock something in, like interception, because its condition isnt for something to die, its for something to leave rift to propagate. It also helps keep the game loop going as you wouldn't have to dash in and out constantly because you killed the last enemy in the rift while not surrounded by any more, as the current version will have an enemy ready a bit further, on who you can again recast the surge and keep urself within the safety of the rift. It removes one of the most important tools in limbos kit for battlefield control, which is limbo's whole identity.

3 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

Augment: Rift Torrent | Rift Veil
-Change Rift Torrent to Rift Veil
-Rift Veil adds a fourth cloak which combines all of them but has 1/3rd of the duration and takes 3x the energy.

This one is at least in the typical DE style, a band aid, costing a mod slot that could be used for something else, more fun.

3 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

4th: Cataclysm
-Hold to refresh cataclysm duration and range.
-Nullifiers no longer deactivate cataclysm, however they will unbanish any enemies inside their bubble.
-Arbitration drones and necramechs can be banished via cataclysm.

Why would you add this hold function when it's as easy to recast it? This also promotes a limbo playstyle that id like people to grow out of, purely in Cataclysm fighting. This ability has so much more utility than haha big bubble cover everything, fight in it.

While nullyfiers are annoying, I don't think they shouldn't pop Cataclysm. It would make no sense in consistency and thematically. Frost's bubble is insta popped when it touches a nully. So is gara's wall. Cataclysm is literally an unstable tear in space-time having something disrupt it should make it pop, as again, its unstable.

Can't complain about arbi drones and necramechs counting as within rift while in cataclysm. 

3 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

Augment: Cataclysmic Continuum
-Increase duration gain to 1.5-2s/kill.
-Increase bubble range/undo shrinking effect with duration.

This augment never had any use, buffing it is meaningless. Having its range reset would again promote the non-primary idea of how one plays limbo.

3 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

New Augment: Cataclysmic Aura
-Cataclysm surrounds and follows limbo.
-Halfs duration.
-Halfs range.

This is an interesting one. Issue i have with it is that it kinda dumbs his kit down and kinda automates it.

 

We can salvage some of the ideas tho in a different concept. We could, as limbo is a master of his dimension, give him some dr while he is in the rift as part of the passive, but this doesn't remove the underlying problem he currently has. His current kit is fine as it is, problem is generally where cc is at this point in time, and instead of looking at limbo, we should look at eximus units and overguard itself, not for the sake of only Limbo, but any frame that relies on CC.

Your rework generally removes what makes limbo unique, while making him 3x more complicated for no real good reason, so its a hard pass for me.

This isn't to say he doesn't need some touch ups, he definitely does, but is all he needs - some touch ups. I can't complain about asking for visibility rework, this has been asked for over and over again and is very much needed at this point.

[Joezone619]

1 hour ago, BoredFinno said:

No, just no. Your rework like so many just kill his identity and playstyle, removes flavor and makes him similar to so many other frames. You are also trying to bend rules on an ability type just to fit Limbo.

4 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

-Make ally players shoot through rift. Able to harm enemies regardless of rift status on both enemies and players.

This literally undervalues any point of Rift and 2 dimensions existing. I talked about this before, rift itself isnt the problem, its its availability to other squadmates.

4 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

Passive
-Limbo himself must kill enemies to gain energy from kills in the rift.

This just makes him a worse Harrow, with exactly same problem as him. Rift is supposed to be a supportive mechanic, it rewards ALL players for interacting with it, not just Limbo. It's issue is as said before how unavailable it is to allies without cataclysm and general lack of information or understanding how to use limbo. Problem with this also is that you are forcing a non-dps, weapons platfrom frame to kill enemies in a game where most of the times, you are playing with someone who is gonna wipe the whole map by just looking at a tile; just like Harrow.

4 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

1st: Banish
-Remove chain banish.
-Enemies & Allies are now banished in a cone radius.
-Cone radius is 50 degrees, and cannot be increased.
-Lower default range from 35m to 20m.
Helminth:
-Subsumed frames can look down and banish to banish themselves.
-Subsumed frames can no longer shoot through the rift.

Expand  

I'm not sure what you mean by chain banish. Banish as it is is completely fine and doesn't need any touching. Also disagree with helminth version. While its extremely niche, its not absolutely useless and one can make some specific builds with it. Allowing every frame to use rift in this way again undermines Limbo's value and uniqueness. Having some extremely niche abilities is absolutely and completely fine, not everything needs to be useful in every scenario. You won't use a hammer to unscrew a screw. 

4 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

2nd: Stasis
-Remove duration, change to a constant drain.
-Constant drain energy per second is based on how many enemies are in the rift.
-Overguarded enemies aren't counted towards drain.
-Limbo can still regenerate energy per second while stasis is active. (like equinox's 3rd, or dante's 1st)
-Limbo constantly emits cold proc in a radius while in the rift, slowing enemies with overguard. This forces limbo to be near overguarded enemies to slow them.
-Cold proc does not deal damage.

Expand  

So, how would this actually work? You can regenerate energy at all times, or when nothing is affected by it? If its the former, you are bending the rules of how channeled abilities work and if its the latter, what is the point of it being a channel? Generally latter part of the rework also makes me question what the actual combo and control is with this. I really don't see what even is the benefit of turning this into a channel. Especially since everything else you mentioned is based on duration. And again, we want to walk away from abilities that drain energy per enemy, look at equinox: she is literally gutted cause her ability is just a worse gloom. They removed puddle completely and reworked grendel's feast just so we dont have any more of these, as they are not fun to upkeep and are generally problematic to maintain. And why would you want to make cold procs closer to eximus units? This just puts a paper thin frame in more of a potential danger. Why not have it applies to any eximus under stasis? Rift is supposed to be limbo's unique way of tanking, y undermine that? Let's also mention that all abilities that affected overguard no longer do, for the sake of some band aid consistency. Its not the ability that should change for the sake of overguard, its overguard that has to change for the sake of many other cc reliant frames.

4 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

3rd: Rift Surge | Rift Cloak (3 Parter)
-Only one cloak can be active at a time.
-All cloaks are based on duration.
-The same cloak can be recast before the duration has ended to maintain the effects.

*Rift Guard*
-Gain damage reduction per enemy killed in the rift.
-Damage reduction is active both inside and out of the rift.
-Damage reduction caps at 90%.
-Damage reduction outside the rift is halfed, but will still increase separately from in-rift DR until it hits the cap.
(If you have 90% DR in the rift, you'll have 45% outside of the rift. Kills won't increase the 90% since its already at the cap, but they'll still increase the 45% until it matches the 90% cap.)

*Rift Torrent*
-Gain damage boost per enemy within a radius of limbo in the rift.
-Damage boost is only active while in the rift. (or) - Damage boost is halfed outside the rift.
-Damage boost has no cap.

*Rift Surge*
-Enemies killed by limbo in the rift release a radial banish effect.
-Radial banish range increased from 5m to 10m.
-Enemies can be killed anywhere in the rift.
-Enemies must be killed by limbo himself. Allies, explosive barrels, companions, etc don't work.

Expand  

 So, you basically are adding tribute to Limbo. Many issues i take from this:

• Cycling through Tribute and rebuffing with it is already so damn annoying, most ppl just use one of the 3
• Rift guard is a straight rip-off of Citrine's ability. Its not unique, it undermines the unique form of limbos tanking and is generally uninspiring to have ANOTHER 90% DR frame. It makes it stale. Game needs diversity to remain fun.
•  Generally having Rift Torrent separate from rift surge is questionable. You want to have surge to keep enemies in the rift, but you dont have damage bonus(in case of your rift surge version) to do it efficiently? Whats the point? If anything, this destroys the fluid gameplay of Limbo for something that i cant even see what the point of the change is. I can't see the fluid game loop here.
• Having rift surge in this way, idk... Generally one would want to have this on for fluid gameplay, but then they sacrifice potential damage buff which is usually a must on a frame or a damage reduction, whose point i already can't see since being in a different plane already protects you from most things, other than eximus abilities and some rare units. It also defeats the surge's utility. Surge as it is is great when you really want to lock something in, like interception, because its condition isnt for something to die, its for something to leave rift to propagate. It also helps keep the game loop going as you wouldn't have to dash in and out constantly because you killed the last enemy in the rift while not surrounded by any more, as the current version will have an enemy ready a bit further, on who you can again recast the surge and keep urself within the safety of the rift. It removes one of the most important tools in limbos kit for battlefield control, which is limbo's whole identity.

4 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

Augment: Rift Torrent | Rift Veil
-Change Rift Torrent to Rift Veil
-Rift Veil adds a fourth cloak which combines all of them but has 1/3rd of the duration and takes 3x the energy.

This one is at least in the typical DE style, a band aid, costing a mod slot that could be used for something else, more fun.

4 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

4th: Cataclysm
-Hold to refresh cataclysm duration and range.
-Nullifiers no longer deactivate cataclysm, however they will unbanish any enemies inside their bubble.
-Arbitration drones and necramechs can be banished via cataclysm.

Why would you add this hold function when it's as easy to recast it? This also promotes a limbo playstyle that id like people to grow out of, purely in Cataclysm fighting. This ability has so much more utility than haha big bubble cover everything, fight in it.

While nullyfiers are annoying, I don't think they shouldn't pop Cataclysm. It would make no sense in consistency and thematically. Frost's bubble is insta popped when it touches a nully. So is gara's wall. Cataclysm is literally an unstable tear in space-time having something disrupt it should make it pop, as again, its unstable.

Can't complain about arbi drones and necramechs counting as within rift while in cataclysm. 

4 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

Augment: Cataclysmic Continuum
-Increase duration gain to 1.5-2s/kill.
-Increase bubble range/undo shrinking effect with duration.

This augment never had any use, buffing it is meaningless. Having its range reset would again promote the non-primary idea of how one plays limbo.

4 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

New Augment: Cataclysmic Aura
-Cataclysm surrounds and follows limbo.
-Halfs duration.
-Halfs range.

This is an interesting one. Issue i have with it is that it kinda dumbs his kit down and kinda automates it.

 

We can salvage some of the ideas tho in a different concept. We could, as limbo is a master of his dimension, give him some dr while he is in the rift as part of the passive, but this doesn't remove the underlying problem he currently has. His current kit is fine as it is, problem is generally where cc is at this point in time, and instead of looking at limbo, we should look at eximus units and overguard itself, not for the sake of only Limbo, but any frame that relies on CC.

Your rework generally removes what makes limbo unique, while making him 3x more complicated for no real good reason, so its a hard pass for me.

This isn't to say he doesn't need some touch ups, he definitely does, but is all he needs - some touch ups. I can't complain about asking for visibility rework, this has been asked for over and over again and is very much needed at this point.

To each their own but none of this feedback seems to address the issues limbo has. My rework is designed to keep him roughly the same as he is now, just less annoying to other players. Maybe with some added in tropes and changes to minimize recasting constantly, and add much needed survivability, without armor he drops like a rock in the face of eximus.

IMO Limbo doesn't interact with the rift enough. fundamentally, 3 of his 4 abilities only do 1 thing, banish enemies. I see little to no point in banishing enemies, to get energy, so i can just banish more enemies. Perhaps if allies gained energy from kills, that would give it some small benefit as support, but they don't, the only benefit limbo provides to allies is 1 energy/s while in the rift. Meanwhile the rift constantly gets in the way of other players, to the point where most limbo players only use his abilities when solo.

Overguard needs to be addressed, as does enemies like necramechs and arbitration drones, who just flat out ignore the rift entirely. With more and more overguard, and units that provide enemies with overguard, that is more and more enemies whittling down the rift's survivability.

Nullifiers too, the nullifier - cataclysm problem is so bad, limbo is essentially locked out of all corpus missions and severely hindered against corrupted if he even has any sort of range mods on at all.

I'm all for feedback but this response doesn't make sense, half of what you say this rework removes, limbo already doesn't have. His identity stays the same, he still has all his abilities and more, which is kinda required for any rework to him at this point thanks to years of neglect and power scaling. So my question to you is, how would YOU address these problems.

Edited April 6 by Joezone619

[BoredFinno]

33 minutes ago, Joezone619 said:

To each their own but none of this feedback seems to address the issues limbo has. My rework is designed to keep him roughly the same as he is now, just less annoying to other players. Maybe with some added in tropes and changes to minimize recasting constantly, and add much needed survivability, without armor he drops like a rock in the face of eximus.

IMO Limbo doesn't interact with the rift enough. fundamentally, 3 of his 4 abilities only do 1 thing, banish enemies. I see little to no point in banishing enemies, to get energy, so i can just banish more enemies. Perhaps if allies gained energy from kills, that would give it some small benefit as support, but they don't, the only benefit limbo provides to allies is 1 energy/s while in the rift. Meanwhile the rift constantly gets in the way of other players, to the point where most limbo players only use his abilities when solo.

Overguard needs to be addressed, as does enemies like necramechs and arbitration drones, who just flat out ignore the rift entirely. With more and more overguard, and units that provide enemies with overguard, that is more and more enemies whittling down the rift's survivability.

Nullifiers too, the nullifier - cataclysm problem is so bad, limbo is essentially locked out of all corpus missions and severely hindered against corrupted if he even has any sort of range mods on at all.

I'm all for feedback but this response doesn't make sense. His identity stays the same, he still has all his abilities and more, which is kinda required for any rework to him at this point thanks to years of neglect and power scaling. So my question to you is, how would YOU address these problems.

I am addressing here what shouldn't be part of his "rework". Hell, he doesn't need one. I made a whole thread on what he actually needs, even with current state of overguard. He interacts with rift enough, we dont have to complicate every kit or make it as complex as dante's is. Thats one of my main issues with most reworks. They either water down rift itself, or completely change what limbo is or overcomplicate his kit. Limbo is fine as he is, he needs tweaks, not rework.

If he gave energy to everyone in the rift, it would be plain overpowered. It works for limbo as his abilities deal little to no damage, giving this kind of power to to other frames in addition to the amount of battlefield control limbo brings, he would literally be the best frame ever to ever exist.

Oh, and nullyfier thing? U build around it and bring right equipment. Thats it.

As for what i'd do, there is a whole thread, couple of weeks old at this point. Give it a read, if u havent already

On 2024-03-22 at 1:09 AM, BoredFinno said:

*Sigh* Oh dear, another boring limbo post, how exciting. Like we don't have enough of those. I'd argue this one is a bit of contrarian post tho, since most of them are crying for a complete overhaul and rework. I don't think that's needed. Not at all. In fact, there are frames in a more dire state that need a bit more extreme changes than Limbo. I say this cause I actually play A LOT of Limbo. And he is fine, he is functional. Even very good if you are aware of the battlefield. It would be such a shame to rework such a unique kit. This is not to say that there are no problems and valid concerns with his kit, which some of the changes here try to address. I don't want to get into the argument of that he needs skill or whatever. He takes getting used to and a bit more active thinking than some other options, but he is definitely not a geniuses frame. He has a learning curve that you choose to engage with or not. If you don't feel like engaging with it, that's completely valid, there are so many other options for you. 

So, why do I think I know what I'm talking about? Well, let me tell you a bit about myself. I have over 4k on this game out of which 18.7% is Limbo and Limbo Prime combined. You could say I could be considered part of a rare disgusting Limbo main breed. I've been playing this game since Chains of Harrow update. I started with Volt and immediately swapped to Limbo once his quest was available. I basically completed every node with Limbo, finding ways to cheese every mission type with him. It was some of the most fun I had in any videogame.

This thread is more to polish some daily Limbo annoyances, both for Limbo players and squad mates and perhaps bring him a bit Up to Date.

I will divide this list into following sections: 

1. Mandatory
2. Would be nice
3. Uncooked ideas
4. Augment changes and ideas

1. Mandatory

• The Banished/Rifted and Rift visual effects need to be updated: 
  Banished effect was never noticeable enough and with the amount of enemies on SP and new ever changing lighting systems, its even harder to quickly spot. The effect should be seen over the whole enemy, not just at their feet. If they appeared smudged, glitching like old displays, cel shaded or noticeable rippling like under heat wave, it would clarify way easier and quicker that enemy is in fact in the rift. It should also work both ways: If you are in the normal plane, rifted enemies should appear the way described, and if you are in the rift, enemies in normal plane should appear this way. When it comes to the rift itself, even I as someone who plays limbo a lot can't always tell if I'm in or out. This game is fcking grindy and more enjoyable if I blast my music over it at times, listening for the sound effect is not the best way and having such different lighting in every tile set makes it hard sometimes to immediately tell if you are in the rift. I'd say go full Borderlands cel shaded style in rift. This is already a direction Rift takes and I think it should be cranked all they way there. The graphics would be so different there would be no mistake if one is in or outside of the Rift.
   
• Make enemy radar of banished/rifted enemies appear in different color, similar to revealing spores: 
  You can see a group of enemies over yonder and you cant tell how many of them are rifted from that far? Well, just look at the mini-map. There has been so many instances where I wanted this to be a thing. A good example is if surge banishes an enemy decently far and behind a wall: having this would give us an information that this enemy is slowing down the mission and that we should get it out of the rift asap, instead of guessing.
   
• Changing the passive:
  Biggest gripe people have with this frame is how unfriendly he is for a squad play. This fact is what makes most of people cry out for his rework. I always considered that 2 planes itself is not the problem, but the availability to a non-limbo frame. So the change I've been thinking of for a while has been this:
  Allow players within Limbo's affinity range to dash in and out of the rift. Unlike Limbo tho, they cant stay in the rift indefinitely this way. I'd say they can do it for like 4 seconds. This gives them enough time to kill that rouge rifted enemy and move to the next wave of defense. This way they still need to rely on Limbo for longer invitations to his domain. It also gives Limbo another layer of utility, a tiny "budget" rolling guard, as dash itself doesn't clear status effects and doesn't make you invincible. If this is too broken, one can always add a cooldown between dashes, just like on rolling guard. His passive already functions in a similar way, but its way too annoying for anyone to seek out his tears in reality. I thought of removing those since this change makes them a bit redundant, but there are some things I'm playing with right now that show some good use of their existence.
   
• Operator amps should hit cross-rift or banish hold function needs to function while incapacitated:
  There is currently a major issue in interaction between Last Gasp and Limbo's general plan: if you are downed (and you will be), there is no point in Last Gasp, as you can't damage anything in the rift. And if you are playing limbo properly, most of the time, everything will be in the rift. Having this node disabled for Inaros and Sevagoth is completely valid as their passives already have the same function, but having this not function on a frame with paper thin defenses is just stupid. Because of this, operator amps should be able to hit enemies cross rift, as having limbo in a squad potentially nerfs anyone's ability to self revive, which just adds to a big list of what limbo can do to troll his m8s. Alternatively, Banish hold function should be allowed during incapacitation, just like disabling cataclysm is.
   
• Surge's affecting range should have a fixed range:
  Rift surge has 2 range stats attached to itself. There is the radial banish range and a range at which enemies are affected (around Limbo) by rift surge once you press the ability. This other range needs to be made fixed or at least have a minimum cap at how much its range can be affected. I think this ability does need to have range and not only apply to any rifted enemy as that could prove problematic for enemy flow in survival. The way it currently works completely makes this ability useless on low range limbo. Thus, as i said, either make it affinity range, or add a cap to how small it can be. Perhaps making its minimum possible range affinity range is a better choice, cause the other could potentially nerf how it work with high range limbo setups. This change mostly expands build flexibility.
   
• Allow interactions with objects that are in Cataclysm:
  Objects like hacking consoles, or putting data masses into terminals. I don't know why this hasn't been a thing from the start. If you want to make players vulnerable while hacking, hate to break it to you, you already removed that possibility with existence of Void Mode. It's one more way Limbo can potentially troll his m8s.
   
• A "boss" arena:
  A lot of newer bosses are completely immune to the existence of rift. This again I think is a stupid concept since this frame's whole survivability is tied to him being in a different dimension and manipulating that to further his goals. I'm not saying that bosses should be affected by stasis, that would be plain stupid as well. What I'm talking about is, let's say you want to fight archon. You can't cast cataclysm on it and be able to damage it, he is still treated like "outside" of the rift. This point kinda ties in with the one right above it. If a boss is in cataclysm, it should be treated like its in the rift. Only exception imo should be eidolons. Bosses should stay immune to banish, stasis and rift surge, I feel like this is a given. Why I'm talking about this is, that a lot of bosses usually have ads around them, and being able to make a "private" arena with you and the boss, freezing adds around it should be a valid strategy, specifically for a frame with paper thin defenses.
   
• Slinky and Illuminati:
  If there was ever an enemy I'd call a bane of limbo, I'd consider it this guy. The Hollow Vein can be banished ONLY ONCE for DRASTICALLY REDUCED banishment time. It's stupidly tanky and if all of this wasn't enough, its magnetic proc goes cross rift. I generally think this guy needs a look at in general, not just considering purely Limbo. The Severed Warden is in similar boat, but its far far far less annoying by itself: unlike slinky, it doesn't gain immunity to being banished, but still has banish duration on itself drastically reduced. If it was half, it would be problematic but manageable. I also heard someone complain that Tharx units in Duviri work similarly (I can't test personally, as I don't have them scanned) and I would really consider removing this trait. We are not talking about halved duration, we are talking like 95% of the duration removed. If not removed, make it halved pls? And don't make them immune to it afterwards.
   
• Casting Speed:
  Tho, this is fixable with yellow shards, base limbo animations still feel a bit too slow. Speeding them up by 20 - 30 % should be considered, as installing amber shards/casting speed mods feels like a band-aid.
   
• On Stasis:
  I'm gonna leave this as a final "mandatory" change as it can be a bit debatable, tho i am on the side of it being implemented: with every update we get more enemies that completely ignore this ability. While it completely freezing all enemies all the time is obviously broken and can make the game unengaging, there should be some effect. Make enemies immune to stasis be slowed for somewhere between 30 - 50%. You can make it a flat unchanging value or you can make it scale with strength, I don't care which route is chosen (tho it should have a fixed minimum in other case). My argument for this is that overguard is more and more prevalent in each update which impacts Stasis' usability. And I'm not talking purely on survivability part, im talking on Stasis remaining active in general. For people that don't know, stasis has a maximum amount of projectiles it can freeze before it collapses, and having 10 overguarded enemies constantly shooting breaks this thing in 3 or 4 seconds. Slowing their rate of fire this way would make this less of an issue. Biggest offender for this is duviri defense. It spawns an obscene amount of eximus units, making stasis and by proxy, limbos main tool for defense obsolete. It also impacts limbo's survivability, but argument for shield gating can be made, even tho, id argue that his whole rift mechanic should be a replacement for him in that aspect and maybe even enforced over shield gating, for the sake of diversity. We already have some abilities having nerfed cc on overguard instead of plainly ignoring it (example: Rhino's Stomp). If anything, this change should be considered for overguard purely.

2. Would be nice:

• Revert Stasis nerf:
  The Stasis nerf was made back in the day when overguard didn't exist, purely cause it made debatably monotone and boring event even less engaging. It's time to remove Sentient's ability to "adapt" to it as it makes no sense logically either. Considering there are already enemies that resist 95% of Banish's duration, this aspect is just a big #*!% YOU for no reason. There are so many other ways to battle Stasis now days anyway, having this is redundant.
   
• Banish Hold-function on any button:
  This one is mostly to add to build flexibility with helminth system. Holding any of his abilities would preform hold function of Banish.
   
• Incorporating Rift Torrent into Rift Surge:
  Some other mains would disagree with this, but my reasoning for this change is that most ability oriented DPS frame also have a weapon boosting ability. Even most supporting frames do as well, which Limbo is lacking. I also consider this augment mandatory on any build utilizing Rift Surge.
   
• Rift Torrent Buff snapshot:
  It would be nice if the weapon buff didn't diminish with every kill immediately, but if instead it worked a bit like cascadia flare, meaning the maximum damage of that cast would linger for some time. By no means is this change necessary, it would just give a bit of consistency.

3. Uncooked ideas:

• Surge banish on allies:
  This one is I think an interesting idea, but seems to be a bit of a boon and bane scenario. It goes back to considering how to fix rift's limited availability to allies. The idea is that ally could wait next to the surged enemy in the rift and wait for its radial banish to proc to enter the rift. This could tie in very nicely with larger range limbos in squads that wouldn't disrupt either player's goals. The problem here with this is that some players wouldn't want to be randomly dragged into the rift, even more often than from purely walking into Banish by accident. It could also get very visually overwhelming.

4. Augment changes and ideas

• Cataclysm Augment:
  The current version of this augment is absolutely and completely pointless. I have never heard anyone justifying the whole mod slot for this effect, when recasting the ability itself is so much better already. I'd rather see something along these lines:
  
  Hold Cataclysm to create a zone with half the range that doesn't shrink over time.
  
  This one would tie in nicely when creating a generalist build for Limbo. You can both have a massive area for enemies themselves or a small bubble focused on defending the objective. This one would be extremely useful in something like Circuit.
   
• On-kill radial banish trigger:
  I can see this one conditionally very useful in some helminth builds, especially ones choosing to change Banish. As much as this isn't recommended, this would still open doors for more build variety. It would also snugly tie in with if holding any ability preformed the hold function of banish. This also shouldn't work on every kill, as I'm pretty sure that is a fast way to crash your game. Wording should be something along the lines of : "killing every X-th surged enemy triggers surge's radial banish" or "killing a surged enemy has a chance to trigger its radial banish". As for which ability would this augment be? It could be a 2nd augment for Rift Surge, it could be the only augment for Rift Surge if the original is implemented into the ability, it could be a stasis augment if you word it something along the lines of "Every X-th enemy under stasis affected by rift surge preforms its radial banish" or again "has a chance to preform", whichever way its chosen to work.
   
• Stasis bank:
  This idea is courtesy of Sci-Fi_Freak_YT and Darkumineru
  The concept is similar to Tesla bank. When an enemy enters the rift, there is x% chance that they will be primed. When killing the primed enemy that is under stasis, it would explode dealing void damage in Y range equal to enemy's HP at the moment they entered rift. Explosion would go cross rift and would deal double damage to enemies inside the rift.
   

One of the most popular change people ask for is the interaction between Cataclysm and Nullifier bubble. It suggests that nullifier would simply nullify the rift on itself and enemies inside its bubble instead of popping the bubble itself. I am not very bothered by how this works personally and i think is quite manageable as it is. It wouldn't really make sense in cases of consistency in interaction nor logically. Frost's Globe is also completely deleted when it touches the nully bubble. Thematically it wouldn't make sense since cataclysm is an unstable tear in reality, constantly collapsing. Having something disruptive touch it would in fact immediately collapse it. In my opinion, as annoying as it can be, its fine as it is. Simply play with less range in corpus missions and you should be golden.

Would these changes make Limbo meta? I dun kno, probably not. But I'm not writing this with this as a goal. I don't think every frame should be meta, they should be fun and functional in the 1st place. If you want your meta room killer to grind 0.2% power increase, be my guest, but don't try to turn every frame into this kind of tool. To me, Warframe is firstly and foremost a sandbox game. You have so much freedom in creating a unique build that can work, that is far more fun to me than reaching max possible grind efficiency. And even if you enjoy the hard on most efficient grind, taking a step back and picking the frame for purely having fun is very nice once in a while.

This is everything I can think of so far. I will ask people who want to comment on this thread to leave any Limbo hate bias out of their arguments as they tend to not be very helpful in resolving his core issues. Also, please avoid talking about major ability changes, as the point of this thread is to refine his current kit, not change it. I'd also like to encourage any Limbo enjoyer and main to add some of their ideas, gripes, critique etc... A lot of this text is purely my opinion, but after going through couple of threads talking about him and considering my experience with the frame, I consider this one to be most relevant so far(of the ones I actually saw). I won't take credit for coming up with all the ideas mentioned here, as i have seen other people's opinions and had discussions about them before, I am simply compiling some that I feel are most relevant and adding my own too. I will update this thread with more stuff if I remember anything else and if I see good ideas that I think would tie in well with his current state. I want this thread to be something developers can look at and have sound information on what should be looked at and considered and perhaps a bit of a push for implementation. I will also ask developers if they see this to take these into major consideration. I understand some of these changes would take quite some time and already stretched resources, but their implementation would I feel refresh not just the frame but game as well.

I thank anyone who decided to read this massive wall of text and took the time of their day to do so.

General feedback i can give is, you are creating so much work code wise which shrinks the possibility of it ever being implemented, you are complicating the gameplay to make it more annoying for no greater benefit and you are watering down rift instead of building on its unique survivability aspect. All of this i already gave you as feedback in the post above.
I will reiterate again. Its not limbo that needs all his abilities looked at, its overguard in general, for the sake of all cc abilities.
 

Edit: i will add that maybe changing his damage type would be beneficial, but with his piss low dmg, i dont think its consequential

Edited April 6 by BoredFinno

[Vazumongr]

4 hours ago, BoredFinno said:

its overguard that has to change for the sake of many other cc reliant frames.

PREACH, MY FRIEND, PREACH!!!