Sevagoth's Shadow - A Light Rework Suggestion

[Flannoit]

Going to preface this by saying I am a huge lover of Sevagoth and he is one of my absolute favorite warframes. I love my spicy dragon who blows up rooms :)

So onto the actual meat of this - with Sevagoth Prime ambiguously on the horizon, I'd really like to see him get some nice QoL or light reworks to make his kit more conducive and playstyle friendly.

Sevagoth's Shadow is not necessarily bad, however it's hit or miss and as more tools and augments have become available to him, Sevagoth's shadow has started to get creeped out of usefulness relatively hard. As of right  now, Sevagoth actually has a lot more raw power in his standard form than his Shadow form, which unfortunately makes his 4 less and less useful to bother with using, turning it from a major part of his kit to just being that thing that's loosely tied to his death defy.

I would like his Shadow to stay, because it's another entire way to play him, and I love the idea of being able to bring the same exact loadout as someone else but play nothing alike. However, his Shadow doesn't contribute anything to people who like to play as Sevagoth himself, while Sevagoth himself in turn doesn't really do much beyond acts as a battery for his Shadow.

So lets get to what I'm actually trying to say here cos my brain is failing and I'm losing steam on my train of thought LOL.

Here is what i have in mind in particular, please feel free to ask me to expand!

• Rework the base functionality of Sevagoth's Shadow
  • Introduce a "tap" and "hold" functionality
    • In essence, you would "tap" cast Exalted Shadow to enter his Shadow form, but you can "hold" cast to instead consume all of the current Death Well instead and grant himself and his allies a buff.
      • This allows Sevagoth to be more versatile with his playstyle! I personally like to play him as a caster frame so right now his Shadow goes untouched unless I'm bored.
  • Grant Sevagoth and his allies boons based on the spend Death Well
    • On "tap" cast - grant Sevagoth and his Shadow a modest amount of Overguard, to prevent him from being evicted quickly after swapping and to help protect him from instantly being downed after his Shadow dies.
    • On "hold" cast - grant Sevagoth and all allies in range some sort of buff (ex. energy gain, damage, critical, vulnerability, etc)
      • Yes, I'm aware Gloom is technically his native buff and survivability tool, but he uses is relatively badly when he's not being used either as a Weapons Platform or for his Shadow. Gloom is just not very good on him when he's being used as a caster-frame since it eats up the energy he needs to be able to clear rooms.
        • I actually swapped Gloom for Dispensary for my build so that way I can heal without throwing all my energy in the toilet...
  • Soft split the Death Well into two different resource pools
    • You have the current standard "Death Well" and the new "Undeath Essence".
    • "Death Well" functions exactly like it currently does with two exceptions:
      • "Tap" casting Exalted Shadow will fully drain the Death Well and convert it 1:1 into Undeath Essence.
        • All functions that currently consume Death Well will instead consume Undeath Essence.
        • Exalted Shadow can be cast as long as you have either enough Death Well or Undeath Essence to enter Shadow form. (Same thresholds as current Exalted Shadow)
        • Death Well to Undeath Essence conversion will functionally happen first.
          • This would make it so if you have 23% Undeath Essence banked but 71% Death Well currently waiting, tap-casting Exalted Shadow will immediately add them together into 94% Undeath Essence and will drain the Undeath Essence bar as normal.
      • "Hold" casting will simply fully drain the Death Well with no conversion into Undeath Essence.
        • The idea behind this is to also allow people to pick and choose when to buff and when to go Shadow form, Undeath Essence functions exactly like Death Well does currently in Shadow Form but it allows you to essentially battery it for later as well.
    • As it does in its current state, the Death Well & Undeath Essence meters  will glow corresponding the amount filled:
      • Examples I made lazily with SAI that the actual warframe asset artists can do better:
        • Both Empty, Death Well Full, Undeath Essence Full, Both Full
        • 
        • For funsies you could make the meters use the primary and secondary channels of his Energy Color respectively
  • Give Sevagoth a sort of barrier to prevent autoloss scenarios
    • The biggest offender to this is the moment his Invincibility wears off, Sevagoth's Shadow becomes incredibly fragile. You have to do a lot to account for this, though because it's independently moddable it's a bit easier to address than it would be on Sevagoth himself.
    • Returning from his Shadow to Sevagoth himself has NO auto-loss barriers. He is fully vulnerable the second his Shadow starts deactivating, making it easy for enemies to down you before your screen is even back to Sevagoth himself. This makes exiting Shadow form in any context incredibly risky because more often than not he's just going to blow up and die in two hits.
    • The ideal way to fix this, in my opinion, is to give at the very least Sevagoth himself a modest chunk of Overguard when he exists his Shadow either peacefully (deactivated) or forcefully (out of resource or Shadow was defeated)
      • This will make it so at worst he gets 3-tapped, but also prevents him from being nuked instantly by enemies out of nowhere who left behind Gas, Toxin, or Jade Light puddles.
        • Sevagoth also very badly wants for some sort of defensive tool in general.
• Change how Sevagoth's Shadow works as a Death Defy
  • Right now, it's functionality ranges from "wonky" to "outright bugged. I unfortunately don't have any real suggestions to make it better other than just disabling it outright.
  • Alternatively, make it so the game will always use Last Gasp from the Unairu Way FIRST, and only trigger his Death Defy if Last Gasp fails. (Either by timer or by the Operator being defeated)
    • I actually really hate that Sevagoth's Death Defy not only goes first but ignores Last Gasp entirely. Last Gasp is incredibly reliable while still having risk-reward elements, whereas Sevagoth's Shadow is awkward and ineffective at best, because he homes poorly in on enemies when using Consume on top of Consume while under Death Defy not working correctly in Railjack nodes.

I had more at one point I think but I've walked away from this like 12 times now and my brain just stopped working beyond what little bits and pieces I already started, oops...

Anyways please buff my sexy dragon Sevagoth and let him not explode and die into a bajillion pieces instantly thank you

[Flannoit]

Bump :)

[Flannoit]

another bump

[Flannoit]

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