I think Wukong could use some tweaking (Slamkong meta)

[EmyrM8]

Alright so I've been seeing these builds in my squads more and more lately. Basically every wukong I see is running the slamkong setup now, which I understand why, it's completely busted right now.

Wukong + Magistar is the pair I always see. Which is weird too me since there are many other capable slam weapons (Furax wraith incarnon, arca titron, jat kittag even) that I don't see anyone using which is a shame. I guess people only care for the highest dps choice.

Anyway I think we can all agree at this point that cloudwalker completely cancelling the Heavy slam animation is clearly unintended. I'm usually not one to suggest nerfs to things before buffs, but in this case it just feels obviously broken and not in a good way. The build is very boring in itself in my opinion, essentially just spamming 2 buttons as fast as possible, Cloudwalker+Heavy slam.

I've seen some discussions on how to nerf this. Some people say they overbuffed slam attacks, or the fact melee influence is very strong with it. But I honestly think slam attacks are in a fine place right now and I enjoy using different builds with them, however most require you to either build innate combo (melee crescendo) or keep up combo using tennokai. I think this works pretty well but the problem comes when Wukong is able to just disable all cooldown it has and being completely invincible while doing it.

So imo I think the best change would be to just force the Heavy slam animation to happen after cloudwalker like it should so it can't just be spammed 100 times a second.

 

and I'm not trying to bash anyone who enjoys the build I just think it's clearly unintended to be spammed to that extent

it's to the point where some people might not even be able to enjoy the game theirselves in a slamkong lobby, since they're instantly annihilating everything in sight lol

Edited Thursday at 05:35 PM by EmyrM8

[Traumtulpe]

I haven't actually encountered any Wukongs at all since the crippling nerfs, but I very much doubt that such a build can outperform a Mirage with a bunch of parkour speed and an AoE gun.

Personally I find it much more of a problem when the entire team has 50000 overguard and is immune to literally everything including being able to go afk while hugging 2 vampiric liminus.

[Agall]

32 minutes ago, EmyrM8 said:

it's to the point where some people might not even be able to enjoy the game theirselves in a slamkong lobby, since they're instantly annihilating everything in sight lol

Just be faster than the Wukong, simple as that.

[Numerounius]

21 minutes ago, EmyrM8 said:

Wukong + Magistar is the pair I always see. Which is weird too me since there are many other capable slam weapons (Furax wraith incarnon, arca titron, jat kittag even) that I don't see anyone using which is a shame. I guess people only care for the highest dps choice.

Eh, I'm seeing those other options in high-level play haven't done enough fissures to see if people are doing it there.

21 minutes ago, EmyrM8 said:

Anyway I think we can all agree at this point that cloudwalker completely cancelling the Heavy slam animation is clearly unintended. I'm usually not one to suggest nerfs to things before buffs, but in this case it just feels obviously broken and not in a good way. The build is very boring in itself in my opinion, essentially just spamming 2 buttons as fast as possible, Cloudwalker+Heavy slam.

I'd say it is intended. Just one example of many with how animations interact with each other. The funky stuff for heavy attack contagion throws was clearly not though, this is a different situation. You're just slamming then casting an ability or rolling.

23 minutes ago, EmyrM8 said:

I've seen some discussions on how to nerf this. Some people say they overbuffed slam attacks, or the fact melee influence is very strong with it. But I honestly think slam attacks are in a fine place right now and I enjoy using different builds with them, however most require you to either build innate combo (melee crescendo) or keep up combo using tennokai. I think this works pretty well but the problem comes when Wukong is able to just disable all cooldown it has and being completely invincible while doing it.

The actual slam attack portion is fine. It is the ability to min-max it to crazy lengths that is the problem. So toning down its top-levle power is my suggestion.

28 minutes ago, EmyrM8 said:

So imo I think the best change would be to just force the Heavy slam animation to happen after cloudwalker like it should so it can't just be spammed 100 times a second.

Changing the heavy attack slam animation could be a good option. But changing how it interacts specifically with Cloud walker isn't.

 

[MobyTheDuck]

I'd say its a 50% chance to either have a slam monkey or a thermal fairy on every public squad.

I just want to refresh my Cathode Grace timer, man.

[KitMeHarder]

2 hours ago, MobyTheDuck said:

I'd say its a 50% chance to either have a slam monkey or a thermal fairy on every public squad.

You speak as if every mission in Warframe is an exterminate fissure. Is that really all y'all play?

[Quest]

ive seen a couple and i dont think its as broken as people make it out to be

[MobyTheDuck]

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

You speak as if every mission in Warframe is an exterminate fissure. Is that really all y'all play?

No, but if you encounter the same build on 50% of the missions you play, in a game with 57 unique characters (soon to be 59) and hundreds of weapons, you gotta admit there is a problem. Playing optimizing the fun out of the game, and all that.

Ember was nerfed for less.

[KitMeHarder]

3 minutes ago, MobyTheDuck said:

No, but if you encounter the same build on 50% of the missions you play

I have never seen a "thermal fairy" in anything but base starchart fissure missions, nor I have heard anyone complain about it in anything but base starchart fissure missions. I'm sure she's run in other places like invasions and such, but the moment a you dip your toe into anything considered barely endgame (sorties up), she's nowhere to be seen.

I also believe I have to yet to see a slamkong, but I don't do many non-endurance SP fissures. (If you're playing on the Asia servers, I recommend you switch from what I've heard.)

Because otherwise your statement either comes across very hyperbolic, or that you do almost nothing but short-form fissures in a game that has dozens and dozens of different game modes. If 50% of your missions are played in the same game mode in a game that has lets say a hypothetical ~60, then you gotta admit there's a problem. (Not to mention each mode tends to have it's own unique meta that's very similar within itself, but very different to the next one.)

16 minutes ago, MobyTheDuck said:

Ember was nerfed for less.

That's not an excuse, nor do we live under the Scott regime anymore.

[vFlitz]

On 2024-09-19 at 8:04 PM, Numerounius said:

I'd say it is intended. Just one example of many with how animations interact with each other. The funky stuff for heavy attack contagion throws was clearly not though, this is a different situation. You're just slamming then casting an ability or rolling.

That's pretty accurate. You can actually animation cancel heavy slams with a lot of abilities, it's just that most abilities don't put you in airborne state. But something like the hop in Firewalker's cast animation can be used to replicate what Wukong is doing with Cloudwalker, and you can put Firewalker on anyone via Helminth.

On 2024-09-19 at 7:31 PM, EmyrM8 said:

it's to the point where some people might not even be able to enjoy the game theirselves in a slamkong lobby, since they're instantly annihilating everything in sight lol

There's a ton of builds that do this, and I highly doubt Wukong is the worst offender in something like normal fissures. Maybe it does stand out a bit in that it combines good speed with enough punching power to handle Steel Path, but it also takes a reasonable amount of investment to get there since you need an incarnon, melee arcanes, purple archon shards, maybe a riven. It's leans heavily on lategame minmaxing, and that should be worth the effort. 

[Hyohakusha]

It's simple. Make it so you can't melee out of Cloudwalker, or can't use Cloudwalker to animation cancel. Slamkong and Thermal Titania are just opposite sides of the same coin, one for SP and one for SC. You can't see when you wind up with one of them, because the people who use them always seem to use the brightest, most obnoxious energy color they possibly can, they break the already horribly programed mission marker, which - most hilariously of all - winds up making fissures take longer since also it bugs out spawns and corruption triggers, and inevitably leads to reactant getting dropped in spots where it isn't marked.

You are going to need to farm reactant. It's a core mechanic of grind in this grindy game. And farming reactant is incredibly annoying because of both of them. "Oh, just go farm it in a different mission type." Why are you farming it out of Exterm's with Wukong and Titania? Because you don't want to wind up sitting in a defense or survival? I wonder why that is.

You don't need a big investment to pull off either build other than Melee Influence or access to Helminth, which you can buy for the average sale price of a Prime Set. Both remove engagement with the parkour system. Slamkong is two button presses with movement, Titania's one cast to get in her 4, then movement and one key press. Other animation cancels don't make you invincible and remove the need to parkour, nor does another frame existing change the fact that consistently, for years now, post OG Wukong in all his forms/buffs/nerfs and Titania have become the two most annoying frames to wind up on a squad with. You don't even see Limbo's anymore. The search function exists, it's not hard to check.

Also, @Numerounius @vFlitz @KitMeHarder you do realize it takes all of 3 seconds to look up someone's profile and check what their most used frame is right?

 

[Numerounius]

7 hours ago, Hyohakusha said:

you do realize it takes all of 3 seconds to look up someone's profile and check what their most used frame is right?

Posting a discussion topic doesn't automatically make it an invitation to snoop on someone's profile.

[KitMeHarder]

11 hours ago, Hyohakusha said:

Also, @Numerounius @vFlitz @KitMeHarder you do realize it takes all of 3 seconds to look up someone's profile and check what their most used frame is right?

You do realize Wukong hasn't been trash since 2019, for various different reasons. He's also had his Prime since 2019, only a few months after he was no longer trash. And you do know having your clone active doubles your usage rate just like specters do, right?

• Before the Old Blood, Wukong had the best melee in the game, just below Maiming Strike builds. So he was used a fair amount there.
• But by far the massive bulk of his usage stat on my account was from using him for his speed, as my old crappy PC couldn't handle Titania (and she also wasn't buffed for a while). So every single mission from Spy, Capture, Rescue, Assault, Sabotage, solo Railjack (no crew back then), Assassination, etc... was done almost exclusively by him for years. And all of them require little to no killing.
• And around the time of the Zariman he got a short stint as my preferred frame to run for Exterminate.

And you do realize I've been playing Warframe for 6.5 years and all those stats are cumulative.

• Artax has over a 52% usage rate at the top of all sentinel weapon... I have not used it since ~2019? But it's that high because that's all I cared to use as a new player, seeing as Fetch didn't exist and Sentinel weapons were low impact.
• Taxon has a 14.7% usage as the top sentinel. Again, haven't used it since ~2019.
• The Centaur is the top at 70.6% usage... haven't used it since 2020.
• The top melee, Dohkram, at 11.1% was barely used after 2019. And has not been used since the heavy slide attack nerf.
• The Ignis Wraith at 15% has not been used in over 1.5 years.
• The next 3 frames after Wukong being Hildryn, Nidus, and Limbo Prime, with 5.2%, 4.5%, and 4.5%. They have not been used in 1.5 years, 5 years, and 2.5 years.

4 hours ago, Numerounius said:

Posting a discussion topic doesn't automatically make it an invitation to snoop on someone's profile.

Personally I'm fine with it. It's public information and I occasionally use it too, but it needs to be properly understood and used wisely.

Edited 14 hours ago by KitMeHarder

[KitMeHarder]

8 hours ago, Hyohakusha said:

Also, @Numerounius @vFlitz @KitMeHarder you do realize it takes all of 3 seconds to look up someone's profile and check what their most used frame is right?

Not to mention you do know Slam attacks have only been buffed for 6 months? That'd be impressive as f*ck if I got a 7.9% usage rate on a frame in only that amount of time, given my account. I'd have to be macro botting Wukong for hours a day, every day to get what you're insinuating.

[Quest]

12 hours ago, Hyohakusha said:

you do realize it takes all of 3 seconds to look up someone's profile and check what their most used frame is right?

Please don't do that

Totally unrelated but an option to make the profile/stats private would be nice

[Fred_Avant_2019]

I've played the Slam Kong myself.

It's insanely fast, very potent, but Wukong himself doesn't bring a "whole lot" in the mix. Let me explain what I mean.

Sure you get to "spam" the Slam on the likes of Arca Titron and such, but you can get similar results by chaining a roll dodge right into your heavy slam attack, as soon as you make contact with the ground, in order to negate most of the recovery time.

 

Wukong himself brings ease of use and the sort of absolute immortality that Cloud Walker is, but if we're talking strictly about damage and this sort of stuff, I think it's unfair to claim it's JUST Wukong. For one, Melee Influence is what enables it all by hitting a whole lot more enemies at once.

 

Arguably, you could get similar/better results with the likes of Kullervo, Rhino or even Valkyr in terms of damage, depending on your helminth combination and all, but it'll be slower since you still gotta include some movement to do it. The problem with getting more damage is that it's fairly unnecessary, since those weapons already just oneshot.

Le 19/09/2024 à 20:21, MobyTheDuck a dit :

I'd say its a 50% chance to either have a slam monkey or a thermal fairy on every public squad.

I just want to refresh my Cathode Grace timer, man.

50% is still less than the guaranteed hardstuck MR 18 Revenant Prime player every squad.

Last I recall you can still get Cathode Grace timer refreshed with assists :

Citation

For each enemy killed directly by Gyre, or killed by any source while affected by a Status Effect inflicted by Gyre, Cathode Grace's remaining duration is extended by 3 seconds, up to a maximum duration capped at 60 seconds.

Source : https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Cathode_Grace

 

Le 20/09/2024 à 00:03, MobyTheDuck a dit :

No, but if you encounter the same build on 50% of the missions you play, in a game with 57 unique characters (soon to be 59) and hundreds of weapons, you gotta admit there is a problem. Playing optimizing the fun out of the game, and all that.

Ember was nerfed for less.

Ember was also nerfed at a time when balancing wasn't as streamlined as it is now, but also at a time when we had no Melee Influence to slam on everything that's good at applying electric Status.

At the end of the day, people play what they want. Even if that includes going braindead Revenant Prime because having proper builds for steel path is too complicated for your average room temperature IQ tenno. I can guarantee you cannot do all your six daily steel path missions in a pub squad without encountering at least one. Same thing with everyone defaulting to the Torid.

 

Nerfing anything just to nerf that one combo/interaction means you take the risk of making the components of the combo completely irrelevant. And at the end of the day, I can still get similar results with Shock Rhino & Dual Ichor Gas-Elec Influence, or just abuse SobekSaryn again for the billionth mission.

It's only as useful as clearing hordes of enemies is relevant to your mission. Is it overkill? Yes it is. Is it the only thing that's overkill? Not at all.