Mag's Shield Polarize - Proposed Rework

[NikolaiLev]

Shield polarize is, in my opinion, an awesome ability.  It's probably her most interesting next to bullet attractor.  However, it suffers from the issue of being good against Corpus and useless anywhere else.  And compared to Pull and Crush, it's inefficient at dealing damage.  This is intended to be done alongside other ideas I have for a rework, but I feel this could stand on its own, so I'm giving it its own thread.

 

New ability: Polarize.

 

This is an ability loaded with utility.  It performs as normal now, except the following additions:

 

All allies' shields are restored in an AoE around her (affected by power range).  Further, they are given Shield Resistance; their shields take X% (arbitrary, 25-50% or so, affected by Power Strength) less damage for X seconds (power duration).

 

Further, each ally emanates an explosion in a small AoE (may or may not be affected by range) for some amount of magnetic damage (may or may not be affected by strength); unshielded enemies hit are slowed or Magnetized for a brief period (also may or may not be affected by duration).

 

Only enemies covered in metal (ferrite, alloy, machiney, unshielded robotics) can be Magnetized; unshielded, fleshy enemies will merely be slowed.  These enemies are staggered and, if too close to each other, attract each other violently, causing a small amount of impact damage and ragdolling them.

 

This gives the ability tons of utility and its own role; it deals minor damage by primarily acts as a defensive buff and a CC.  Further, the ability is now useful against each faction, but in their own ways.  The slow and AoE damage will help greatly against infested, while every Grineer enemy is ripe for Magnetization.  Magnetic damage is great against Corpus, and in Any situation restored and buffed shields is useful.

 

A simple list of the effects of the ability per faction:

Tenno: Shields restored, shields resist damage, emanate damage+CC effect

Corpus: Shields detonated, gets slowed/magnetized if unshielded

Grineer: Guaranteed magnetization if hit; Grineer mostly have impact-based weapons, thus slightly increasing the value of the shield buff

Infested: Guaranteed slow and damage (they tend to be close to you)

 

This ability may appear to have excessive amounts of utility (and it very well may) but I feel, through number tweaks, it can be balanced, and serve as a nuanced and fun ability to use with room for skill.  Honestly, this ability could easily replace Crush, which I feel is an extremely uninteresting AoE damage+CC ability much like Reckoning or Miasma; it'd thus pave the way for another, more interesting ability in Mag's kit.

[WhiteCopain]

So you don't really want a rework, just a megabuff. Neat.

[Leuca]

Shield Polarize is plenty useful for completely restoring your entire party's shields, even when not faced against corpus.

I think it might be interesting if it knocked down enemies near allies that had shields successfully restored, but it's already a really strong skill. What she needs is for Bullet Attractor to be a bit better and for Crush to actually be meaningful in late-game content.

[Namacyst]

Make it a 3 Effect ability with LoS (Polarization wave eminating from Mag as centre to make it more balance with the following changes)..

 

A) If enemie with shield = let it behave like it does now (drain, AE damage for everyone except the one causing the explosion, no overlap)

 

B) If no shield but armor = constricts armor resulting in half the percentage of the shield drain in armor reduction, slows and does damage based on reduced armor value on targets hit, no AE

 

C) if no shields or armor = magnetizes the metal compound of the blood, reduces max health by a certain percentage (lower than armor drain), slows by double the amount of health reduced and deals the same amount of damage

 

If an Enemy has Shields and Armor then A is the effect until shields are depleted (from whatever source) ... if you continue to use Polarize the Enemie will suffer from B until all Armor is gone (which normally will only be the case if combined with corrosive damage or other abilites)... after that C... all different effects stack.

 

This way Polarize will always do damage to some extend to each enemie type.

Edited January 27, 2014 by Namacyst

[Makya]

And compared to Pull and Crush, it's inefficient at dealing damage.

Unlike pull and crush, Shield Polarize can kill a group of lv 100 Corpus with shield ospreys in an instant. How is this inefficient?

[Mayflower]

Unlike pull and crush, Shield Polarize can kill a group of lv 100 Corpus with shield ospreys in an instant. How is this inefficient?

Because it works only against Corpus?

Edited January 27, 2014 by Mayflower

[jmthebigman]

disagreed keep it as it is.

not again a skill of mag getting wrecked thank you (looking at Pull first being a great utility skill and now a dmg-spam skill)

[Makya]

Because it works only against Corpus?

Also Corrupted.

[jmthebigman]

also works on ancients in void who get ospreyed

[Archwizard]

I think of Shield Polarize more as a team/pod survival utility with a... destructive perk on Corpus maps. 

 

When you look at it that way, how is it not a fine ability?

[ZeGreymane]

Reach easialy waves 30 of tier 3 defense against corpus, only spamming this ability.... Don't need rework... It's a nice teamassist everywhere and a nice weapon against "all-level" corpus... :p

 

For the everywhere utility, with a team who got a decent amouth of shield you really can play the "healer", letting no-one take damage on life.

This is for me the real puprose of this skill (already trying to use it before the mag's main update).

 

The additionnal ability to deal damage with shielded ennemies is for me an fun (op) optional feature.

 

Always got the bullet magnet to deal efficient damage against grinner/corpus.

 

Infested as everyone can't be calm down with pull and bone crush...

 

This warframe is already more polyvalent than some other (frost vs infested, valkyr vs non-infested, vauban vs non-infested ...).

 

Imho, the only thing missing is a little mobility tool, pull on a bullet magnetised target to be pull on it? (Found a ripline for mag!!!) :p

Edited January 27, 2014 by ZeGreymane

[VKhaun]

I think the whole thread rests on the assumption that this is an anti-corpus skill and I don't really go along with that. It helps allies.  Stalker and Harvester already use Protoshield. Some Grineer bosses have small amounts of shields too right? Then we've got a whole new faction coming, plus more Corpus units could be added to the void which already includes shield drones.

 

If I were to change shield polarize I would make it more team friendly. Maybe refill shields and overcharge them with extra that doesn't regenerate, or "polarize" the shield of your allies so they count as having some degree of an armor value. Make their shield stop procs and damage types that would normally go through shields for X seconds. Something along those lines.

 

Offensively I like it very much how it is. You can't balance any given enemy within a game where it could be fighting four frames with no damage buffs, and at the same time could end up fighting four frames with crazy damage powers like MPrime. The disparity is too great. Damage buffs need to be somewhat conditional. Shoot the right spot, use the right damage type, or only remove a certain surface (shields in this case), stuff like that. Shield polarize is right where it needs to be in that sense. IMHO.

Edited January 27, 2014 by VKhaun

[Obus]

When I got Mag, I constantly spamming Pull and sometimes used Crush. Plus Bullet Attractor on bosses. But when i got Mag Prime, in Orokin Void I now rarely use Pull on T3 missions, insufficient damage. Shield Polarize most of Corrupted killed immediately, if they are many and they are close by. Especially effective after use Molecular Prime by Nova. After Polarize you can add Crush.

So, now Mag has a chip damage/CC skill Pull against low-mid level enemies, very effective support/damage skill Shield Polarize, Bullet Attractor for fat guys, and damaging ulta for applying a large one-time damage on many targets. What did I miss?

[Preanette]

Focus should be directed to her 3 other skills IMO. For a start, crush is probably the worst and most boring ulti in game, doing average unscalable dmg, few seconds of CC and nothing else. Even frost kinda got out of the pit with a bugged 5 sec freeze on enemies. I think that leaves mag and excalibur for ulti rework.

[jmthebigman]

Focus should be directed to her 3 other skills IMO. For a start, crush is probably the worst and most boring ulti in game, doing average unscalable dmg, few seconds of CC and nothing else. Even frost kinda got out of the pit with a bugged 5 sec freeze on enemies. I think that leaves mag and excalibur for ulti rework.

dont forget Banshee reward/risk for the ultimate is a laugh.

Still Pull needs to be brought back to the previous one where Pull actually pulled the room.

[Preanette]

dont forget Banshee reward/risk for the ultimate is a laugh.

Still Pull needs to be brought back to the previous one where Pull actually pulled the room.

Hmm I saw Banshee using soundquake for a grineer survival mission and it was easy for teammates to act on it, unlike crush XD. But still, yeah I wouldn't want to die while casting my ulti. At least in the Mag pull poll Banshee is being looked at first.

[jmthebigman]

Hmm I saw Banshee using soundquake for a grineer survival mission and it was easy for teammates to act on it, unlike crush XD. But still, yeah I wouldn't want to die while casting my ulti. At least in the Mag pull poll Banshee is being looked at first.

They put pull back as it was, idk where they stated it. but yeah Banshee is in big need of a fix to get back on par.

[Paradoxbomb]

Credit where it's due, that's actually an interesting idea, though I do think Shield Polarize is fine where it is, extremely powerful yet situational, and thus more balanced than most room clearers (and it even comes with a bonus shield restore).

 

I'd like to see a magnetizing mechanic added to Crush instead. Right now it's just a lackluster AoE that picks enemies up for a few seconds and damages them, but how awesome would it be if, instead, it turned all enemies Mag picks up into electromagnetic projectiles, which she then proceeds to launch at high velocity towards nearby enemies (or at each other if no other enemies are in range)? Damage could be effected by enemy armor/metal in addition to the number of enemies physically being launched.

Edited January 27, 2014 by Paradoxbomb

[NikolaiLev]

So you don't really want a rework, just a megabuff. Neat.

 

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I'd rather this ability replace Crush.  It has potential to be a very powerful ability (though the proposed one could easily receive small numbers, and it'd be plenty balanced).

[-CM-Syein]

this ability is op if DE were to buff it the way you suggest it. 

However, if you wanted shield polarize to work the same with other faction as it work with corpus. It will be a good idea not to make her too specialized for one faction and suck in the other. 

 

-Shield polarize- remove corpus shield, gain back your shield 

-Armor polarize- Remove grineer armor, gain more armor for yourself (since armor can't be deplete, it can only be add more)

-Health polarize- Remove Health, gain back health for yourself (it won't have any affect to your health if you already at full health)

 

^ make mag's ability able to switch depend on which faction she against. 

 

There are hole though, void run??? 

[NikolaiLev]

this ability is op if DE were to buff it the way you suggest it. 

However, if you wanted shield polarize to work the same with other faction as it work with corpus. It will be a good idea not to make her too specialized for one faction and suck in the other. 

 

-Shield polarize- remove corpus shield, gain back your shield 

-Armor polarize- Remove grineer armor, gain more armor for yourself (since armor can't be deplete, it can only be add more)

-Health polarize- Remove Health, gain back health for yourself (it won't have any affect to your health if you already at full health)

 

^ make mag's ability able to switch depend on which faction she against. 

 

There are hole though, void run??? 

 

People don't seem to like reading threads on the forums.  It makes me wonder why they come here at all.

 

If this ability was implemented and it buffed your shields by 1% for 1 second and each explosion dealt 1 damage, it wouldn't be very overpowered, now would it?

 

Numbers.

Edited January 28, 2014 by NikolaiLev

[Leuca]

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I'd rather this ability replace Crush.  It has potential to be a very powerful ability (though the proposed one could easily receive small numbers, and it'd be plenty balanced).

No. Part of Mag's universal appeal is that she has a cheap, cost effective way to sustain the party's shields. Shield Polarize is fine as-is. If other parts of her kit were more up to par, this discussion would likely not even be happening.

[00zau]

I like the idea of Shield Polarize blocking procs. I think it's more or less fine as is, but giving it a bit more utility as a defensive ability sounds like a plan.

[LukeAura]

My suggestion for it in another thread was to have it knockdown enemies around healed allies. 
Team CC, essentially. Doesn't at all improve its power against Corpus, who get knockdowned by exploding shields anyways, but makes it way better at dealing with grineer and infested, as well as emphasizing Mag's supportive and CC role.