Visual clarity, telegraphing, and time to kill. Jade Light Eximus make the game less fun.

[Qui9K9]

Short of the new Jade Light Eximus' ability to kill you in the time it takes to aim your gun, there are a few succinct pain points with the design. The beam is extremely bright and obscures large portions of view when multiple eximus are nearby, it is hard to tell which enemy the individual beams are spawned by, there are no debuffs placed on the player to indicate the coming 1-shot if you happen to be scoped in, and the time to kill is atrociously fast even on the tankiest frames running % dmg reduction. Please also consider that frames with full status immunities are instantly killed by this as well.

I believe it would be reasonable to reconsider the design of these enemies for the overall health of the game, as many players I've encountered have had similar feelings about the design and strength of the new units. 

The new units are not fun. 

[moondog548]

Good summary of the issues. I like these guys, but they need tuning for sure.

[Juuyon]

I initially only took issue with them insta-wiping Defense targets, but after playing some more, I have to agree they make a horrible addition to the game. Today, when two members of a pub squad got wiped, I was unable to revive them, as the Jade Lights kept honing in on me while I was doing so. There was also an issue with my voice chat (Discord) which I was unable to fix, because the Jade Lights force you to pay *full* attention to the game at *all* times – which in a game full of time-wasting grind such as Warframe becomes a chore real fast. Also, I only marginally evaded death thanks to Autobreach as I started a hack and a Jade Light popped up on me.

The Jade Lights might work in a specific game mode, such as Ascension, but please don't extend the presence of Jade Light Eximus beyond that mission, because they just don't match the way the game is usually played (as should be evident from playing the Event Alerts).

Edited June 19 by Juuyon

[insanitybit]

I feel somewhat positively about them, but yeah, there are problems.

1. As mentioned, you have no way of knowing which Eximus 'cast' the light when there are multiple, no indicator of where they might be.

2. Other Eximus attacks are impacted by Cold procs, slowing down the attack. Jade isn't, which removes one of the important methods left for CC'ing Eximus. I think that if the Eximus unit has cold procs, that should slow down the light.

3. The problems with Defense have only gotten worse, considerably worse, with Jade. Defense targets were already extremely unbalanced, this makes things worse.

4. Their movement speed seems a bit too fast in general. They match the sprint speed of at least some of my frames.

Edited June 19 by insanitybit

[Harutomata]

Feels like they can attack you even without LoS which is a bit silly considering how many warframes got that treatment (for Dante it was needed though).
It does seem poorly telegraphed and the difficulty doesn't come from dealing with the units themselves, but the visual clutter and the not evident visual clues which are supposed to help to deal with those units.
I'd suggest making the beams not attack from simply upwards, but from the direction of the units. Otherwise warframes are going to get a neck ache real fast.
Maybe it's less annoying in other game modes, but the Jade one is especially annoying on this topic.

Another thing that's silly is that Zephyr can't reflect the beam with her 3rd ability. Was a Zephyr nerf needed with Mesmer Skin in the game?
I know she's not safe from Arson Eximi either, but you can intercept that if you simply pay a bit of attention and just roll through and not get hit.

Edited June 19 by Harutomata

[FaraTenno]

Truthfully I don't hate them that much as a solo player, but I do feel there are some glaring issues that need to be addressed.

Heading into the Simulacrum and spawning Eximus units appears to have an extremely high chance to spawn a Jade Eximus over the other possible variants. I'm sure this was done to emphasize Jade Eximus for the event, but it's currently causing Jade Eximus units to plague the game all around.

That being said, the obvious defense issue is very real. There was an alert yesterday for a Hijack mission that I almost finished, only to fail the mission in a few seconds when a Jade Light appeared above me, who happened to be riding on the defense target. 
That thing died in a few seconds, with only about 3000 health. The worst part is that the unit was incredibly far behind the target, too.

They were obviously introduced to keep players moving, which seems to be the BIG design philosophy in recent content.
Mirror Defense, Void Flood, Ascension, Disruption, and Alchemy have all been designed with this philosophy of "keep moving around" as the objective, whereas now they appear to be pushing it even harder by wanting you to move around, or die.

We know the game has movement options, and there is already incentive to using them because enemies are less accurate the more mobile you are.
Forcing us to move in situations where we need cover is just turning combat into chaos.

[Alpha_Tango]

18 minutes ago, Juuyon said:

I initially only took issue with them insta-wiping Defense targets, but after playing some more, I have to agree they make a horrible addition to the game. Today, when two members of a pub squad got wiped, I was unable to revive them, as the Jade Lights kept honing in on me while I was doing so.

Make a habit of reviving teammates using your Operator while in Void mode apart from maybe using Vazarin.

[Juuyon]

1 minute ago, Alpha_Tango said:

Make a habit of reviving teammates using your Operator while in Void mode apart from maybe using Vazarin.

I generally do, but in this case it just seemed faster... until the death rays circled back and made it clear that's a no-go. Also, that's not an option for every player, so the point still stands.

[Alpha_Tango]

10 minutes ago, Juuyon said:

I generally do, but in this case it just seemed faster... until the death rays circled back and made it clear that's a no-go. Also, that's not an option for every player, so the point still stands.

👍

Anyone else experienced a seemingly harmless Interception Alert gone bonkers? I joined one and we can't keep all four targets active and settled with only two active ones defended on both rounds 😆.

[FaraTenno]

9 minutes ago, Juuyon said:

Also, that's not an option for every player, so the point still stands.

This.

I've been mentioning how DE has locked the only "viable" weakness to Overguard, Void Damage, behind several hours of gameplay despite eximus units being a mechanic from the start of the game. Only for it to fall on deaf ears every single time.
Operators have become such an integral part of gameplay that it appears DE has completely forgotten that there's a significant portion of the game where you do not have access to them. I feel a lot of players have forgotten that, too.

The really big question is, can Jade Eximus units spawn before taking on Jade Shadows? If they can't, at least they're accounting for players not having the tools they expect you to use. If they can... well, I hope new players enjoy dying without understanding what even killed them.

[insanitybit]

I posted elsewhere about this, but Jade Eximus are really wrecking Frost. Frost's primary survival technique is Snow Globe, which Jade Eximus ignore completely. The second most important survival technique is cold, which Jade Eximus ignore entirely. The last line of defense is Frost's 4, which locks him in place with an animation that can't be sped up, and Jade Eximus do so much damage that you'll die before you finish the cast.

Jade Eximus genuinely bypass every single survivability technique that Frost has. It feels really bad since Frost just had this great rework to buff him up a bit, especially defensively (better globe, better armor, more cold procs), and literally none of it even *applies* to Jade Eximus. They flat out bypass every single tool in the "Frost survival" toolbelt.

Edited June 19 by insanitybit

[Juuyon]

2 hours ago, Alpha_Tango said:

Make a habit of reviving teammates using your Operator while in Void mode apart from maybe using Vazarin.

Actually, a post on another thread reminded me of something that happened to me today: I had switched into Operator Void Mode to heal my Warframe using Magus Repair, and while sticking to that, a Jade Light targeted my Warframe. A few seconds later my Operator was disintegrated while in Void Mode, I was thrown back into the frame, and even though I dodged the Jade Light as quickly as I could, the DoT still killed me. These things are borked beyond belief and should be removed ASAP.

[MithrasRevan]

DE, consider putting Jade Eximus units to... maybe only alerts and the ascension game mode. These things are too annoying to be encountered on EVERY kind of mission.

I wonder what the experience is for those that haven't played the quests - are they just seeing these Jade Eximus units appear willy nilly without explanation?

Anyway, seriously limit the presence of these Eximus units. If we talk about lore, isn't granum units the only ones to logically have these Eximus units available? Hope you take the recommendations above with consideration.

[ShogunGunshow]

Their damage is nuts.

Actually, it feels like all damage is pretty nuts after the update. Maybe a little better now that shield DR is, you know, working (supposedly). But I've never seen my shield break so many times on my Gara as I have over the last 24 hours. Kinda batty.

[FaraTenno]

42 minutes ago, Juuyon said:

Actually, a post on another thread reminded me of something that happened to me today: I had switched into Operator Void Mode to heal my Warframe using Magus Repair, and while sticking to that, a Jade Light targeted my Warframe. A few seconds later my Operator was disintegrated while in Void Mode, I was thrown back into the frame, and even though I dodged the Jade Light as quickly as I could, the DoT still killed me. These things are borked beyond belief and should be removed ASAP.

This one is kind of long standing, and I can't really tell you why, but there are some situations where transferring to Operator doesn't disable the Warframe's hitboxes.
Any damage done to it will persist into your operator, even if they're invulnerable.

I've never been able to reliably report this as a bug, as I have no idea what causes it, but Jade Light would absolutely make that bug even more frustrating.

[(PSN)Sentiel]

11 minutes ago, FaraTenno said:

This one is kind of long standing, and I can't really tell you why, but there are some situations where transferring to Operator doesn't disable the Warframe's hitboxes.
Any damage done to it will persist into your operator, even if they're invulnerable.

I've never been able to reliably report this as a bug, as I have no idea what causes it, but Jade Light would absolutely make that bug even more frustrating.

This should because the Warframe has some channeled ability activated.

[Alpha_Tango]

46 minutes ago, Juuyon said:

Actually, a post on another thread reminded me of something that happened to me today: I had switched into Operator Void Mode to heal my Warframe using Magus Repair, and while sticking to that, a Jade Light targeted my Warframe. A few seconds later my Operator was disintegrated while in Void Mode, I was thrown back into the frame, and even though I dodged the Jade Light as quickly as I could, the DoT still killed me. These things are borked beyond belief and should be removed ASAP.

taken from WF fandom -

Quote

• Magus Repair heals all Warframes in range, this includes your own and your teammates'.
• Magus Repair heals 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 22 / 25% of maximum health per pulse.
  • Pulses have a 1-second cooldown.
  • Entering Void Mode triggers a pulse, unless in cooldown. With max-rank Magus Repair, it would take 3 seconds to reach 100% HP from minimum health due to the initial pulse upon entering Void Mode.

If the DoT outran the Repair then maybe that is what happened to you. I only healed teammates who got deleted by the beams with my Operator in Void mode while my Titania stayed safe in flying form so I can't share the experience. I finished farming Helminth Jade only 2 missions after the patch and quit.

Also, I would not go as far as removing them as they introduce an interesting mechanic. I don't mind it if the beam was a bit slower in tracking our movement though

[NanoVega]

4 hours ago, insanitybit said:

I posted elsewhere about this, but Jade Eximus are really wrecking Frost. Frost's primary survival technique is Snow Globe, which Jade Eximus ignore completely. The second most important survival technique is cold, which Jade Eximus ignore entirely. The last line of defense is Frost's 4, which locks him in place with an animation that can't be sped up, and Jade Eximus do so much damage that you'll die before you finish the cast.

Jade Eximus genuinely bypass every single survivability technique that Frost has. It feels really bad since Frost just had this great rework to buff him up a bit, especially defensively (better globe, better armor, more cold procs), and literally none of it even *applies* to Jade Eximus. They flat out bypass every single tool in the "Frost survival" toolbelt.

Hi! Resident Frost Main: 

1. Shoot the Beam, it dies, then carry on. 

2. Cast Avalanche While Sliding or jumping. Why aren't you doing this all the time anyway? 

3. Snowglobe really shouldn't be your primary survival technique. It's like saying you should rely only on Orbital Drop Deployable cover or something at all times. Keep Moving and use the Actual Cover the game geometry provides you. 

4. When all else fails? Jump! Jade things appear able to follow someone but not vertically. Take the High Ground! 

[insanitybit]

22 minutes ago, NanoVega said:

Hi! Resident Frost Main: 

1. Shoot the Beam, it dies, then carry on. 

2. Cast Avalanche While Sliding or jumping. Why aren't you doing this all the time anyway? 

3. Snowglobe really shouldn't be your primary survival technique. It's like saying you should rely only on Orbital Drop Deployable cover or something at all times. Keep Moving and use the Actual Cover the game geometry provides you. 

4. When all else fails? Jump! Jade things appear able to follow someone but not vertically. Take the High Ground! 

I think you're missing my point. Yes, Frost can cast Avalanche while jumping, and to an extent while sliding. This forces a lot of movement, however, which is difficult if you're in a bubble. Like I said, it makes the bubble feel very small.

I don't know what you mean by snow globe not being the primary survival technique. That is the point of the skill, it is a survival skill, a defensive skill. It being rendered useless is notable. It's not to say that you have no other choice, that you rely entirely on Snow Globe, but it is indisputably a defensive skill. I think the only argument that could be reasonable is if it's the *primary* survival skill, but it doesn't change much.

It's not as if Jade Eximus are some sort of unbeatable, existential threat. The problem is that they bypass everything Frost has in his survival/ defensive toolkit. They are unique in that regard, completely bypassing everything survival technique that Frost brings to the table, reducing you to "jump" and "run".

Edited June 19 by insanitybit

[Poestis]

I generally like em, aim gliding and shooting these guys with not much of an issue. Rolling Guard midair when shields go down from beams.  If you stop to aim and shoot them, you are likely gonna die, of course.  Plus you can shoot the beams drone when you aim up and they die, so do that if you are having trouble running from them.

I get the brightness being too bright.  To fix this for now I would turn off Glare and Bloom under Video settings under Options Menu.

Would love to test everything more, but you can't spawn these guys in Simulacrum yet even with full scans!  We need this fixed as well and maybe then we can get that Debuff on the HUD.

The Interception Alert though gets a little insane with just how many of these guys spawn at once.

Edited June 20 by Poestis

[Poestis]

6 hours ago, Juuyon said:

when two members of a pub squad got wiped, I was unable to revive them, as the Jade Lights kept honing in on me while I was doing so. There was also an issue with m

Void Mode as Operator and res people and you will not die from beam.

[Poestis]

6 hours ago, insanitybit said:

2. Other Eximus attacks are impacted by Cold procs, slowing down the attack. Jade isn't, which removes one of the important methods left for CC'ing Eximus. I think that if the Eximus unit has cold procs, that should slow down the light.

Yeah, I wish you could slow these down with CC somehow with Nova's Molecular Prime,Sevagoth's Gloom or just any of the abilities.

[The-4th-Core]

The state of their damage is outrageous, and a big thing that makes it truly insane is that its applying Heat Procs. Without Status Immunity, they obliterate your shield and continue damaging you even if you escape the beam itself as soon as your shield gate ends. There's a lot of ways they can Nerf this to make it more bearable, and here's a few that come to my mind:

- Reduce overall Damage, Steel Path Jade Eximus feel stronger than Elite Archamedia Necramechs which should be the hardest thing outside endless missions in the game right now, clearly this has gone too far

- Remove the Heat Proc, just have it be pure damage

- Have a 1-2 second visual indicator of the beam incoming

- Give them a firing duration of 3 Seconds or so before the Jade Eximus needs to recast it (ideally with a few seconds of downtime inbetween)

- Create a visual tether from the source of the beam to the Jade Eximus spawning it

- Reduce the move speed of the beam to make evading easier, especially in tight areas

 

Even just 2-3 of those would help immensely in making the Jade Eximus fall in line with other Eximus units. The Power, DoT, ambushing, Range, Speed, and lack of downtime all add up to it being one of, if not the most threatening effects in the entire game to players.

Though while we're talking about Heat procs from Eximus with little warning, Arson Eximus could still use a lengthier cast time and shorter area on their attack since they also hit really hard and fast with quick coverage compared to the other eximus like Blitz and Shock.

And to OP, thanks for getting the discussion ball rolling.

[RichardKam]

I don't know if it was because buggy merulina or what, but jade light just go straight through merulina 25k health pool and kill my Yareli instantly.

I have done some testing, jade light can either ignore the dismount invulnerable period and kill Yareli, or directly damage Yareli health pool ignoring merulina. In both cases jade light simply invalidate the merulina damage buffer and gating function.

[Mithost]

From the Jade Shadows: Known Issues thread:

Quote

- Jade Light does more damage than intended at higher levels

While the other issues in this thread are still relevant, it appears the high damage is a bug that is pending a Hotfix.