RIP any hope of Ember being playable

[traybong111]

4 hours ago, Nekomian said:

It's been a hot minute since I used Ember prior to her rework, so I had to look Accelerant up - based on what I'm reading, it has a higher multiplier than even eclipse but only for heat damage (x2.5 dmg at max rank, scales with strength), and has a 20m radius with no LoS checks. It also stuns enemies, providing some cc.

This doesn't seem particularly interesting or engaging, even if it has the potential to be a very strong ability (I'm seeing some rather old videos of people doing millions of damage with it, even if that's rather standard with a good incarnon build or something nowadays) if all you do is press a button and everything within' 40m (since you'd mod for range to mark more enemies) or so gets stunned and takes increased heat damage. It apparently also applied the increased damage to HM procs from some comments I'm seeing too, if the crit dealt also caused a heat proc.

The flash accelerant augment seems nice and compliments the ability, but skills like this that enforce elemental damage buffs tend to mess up squad builds. It's normally an inconvenience, but with an ability that only works fully with one type of damage, it seems to very strictly limit you and squad members to heat-based builds to make the most of it. I can definitely see why they'd want to replace this, it should probably be type-agnostic and provide damage vulnerability instead, and have some sort of sight checks, but ultimately it still seems a bit annoying to deal with and work around. Immolation fulfills a similar role of adding more damage to your fire-based abilities (via heat meter) while also providing DR and not being restrictive to builds or squad play (since even if you build for heat and a volt with shock trooper comes along, with accelerant your extra damage on weapons no longer works as it's radiation not heat, invalidating everything but the stun and casting speed).

Maybe I just don't like the ability, but I don't think they should bring accelerant back (at least as is) - there's other ways to make her kit more unique or relevant without causing build limitations like this. Immolation could have an increased status % chance or reload speed to weapons at max heat meter, or extra ability damage or increased attack and cast speed, or some other buff that would be unique to her kit that other frames don't have under certain conditions (it's hard to theorycraft these on a whim), allowing for varied play styles depending on what the player wants to do. I just don't think "more damage but only of this one type" is a good approach to it, even if it would definitely give her something unique.

I don't think Accelerant as it was would be a good fit for modern Warframe either, but the point is (Flash) Accelerant would be much more unique, fitting and stronger than the most generic MMO slop of a kit she has now. If Flash Accelerant adding fire damage to teammates is such a disruption that could always be turned off; nobody really used it for teamwide support function anyway, which is why DE later added the self-buff portion. Being able to choose when I could add heat damage or combined element to weapons opened up a variety of strong build options for her, especially since this was an era where Condition Overload reigned supreme.

What does she have now? One of the only few channeled abilities with uncapped, exponentially increasing energy drain? Armor strip that'll have overguard lazily tacked on to its lazy Augment? Meteors you've seen every single generic fantasy fire mage call down with the most insulting bandaid Augment? I'm sorry to sound harsh but it is nothing short of infuriating to see her go through no less than 2 major reworks over a decade and end up with the most thoughtless, low effort Augments. Sure, it's not an unfair assessment to say more Augments are bad and/or bandaids than genuinely good or interesting, but you'd be hard pressed to find another Warframe with 5 Augments that are all bad or boring.

It's not that I think her kit is irredeemable; it's a bit basic but simplicity tends to leave a lot of room to add interesting twists without compromising the whole. But time and time again DE chooses to just...not when it comes to Ember.

Edited June 9 by traybong111
grammar