U12 Feedback: Frost.

[Ryunokage]

I've had the opportunity to play around with the frost since U12 popped and thought to share what I felt about the changes that made their way onto the frame.

 

Prior to U12, the frost was primarily a defensive warframe. Its slow speed, short power range and limited energy discouraged its use as an offensive caster frame in higher leveled content. These shortfalls were however compensated partly by its utility ability, snowdome, which functioned to block all incoming fire for a limited amount of time and slowed any enemies that ran into the dome itself.

 

Though exemplary in very niche roles, specifically, on the defense against enemies that fought exclusively at range. The frost suffered some serious drawbacks when dealing with melee heavy factions, the infested, or mixed forces like the grineer, the latter of whom boasted melee oriented light infantry who could knock down in close quarters and tie up the frost. Buying time for grineer heavies to move into position and bombard the dome with explosives, something snowdome did not mitigate at all.

 

Further more, the short range of the frosts' "offensive" abilities(barring freeze which has its own awkward moments) and slow speed, made me very much dependent on weapons to be effective, especially with the need to ration energy to refresh snowdome. Especially when incoming fire is too heavy to risk running out to collect energy.

 

Currently, the frost has received a slight buff to its offense in the form of reworked freeze, which has an impact AoE. Ice wave, which has had its slow effect that was lost in damage 2.0 returned, and a buffed avalanche. As a trade off however, snowdome was changed to block only a finite amount of damage per cast.

 

However welcome the offensive benefits were, I've found that the frost's slow movement speed, short ability range and limited energy pool severely hampers my ability to make use of these abilities. Even with a fully fused focus mod and the squall helmet, the damage dealt by these abilities is only viable when fighting enemies at low level, it scaled poorly vs higher leveled enemies, as encountered in high level defense and survival missions. The frost's fall back, snowdome, likewise seems to scale poorly and forces me to remain even more closely attached to the objective, given how much more frequently I would need to refresh it.

 

On the whole, I've found the frost to have gained an offensive edge that I employ, given that their shortfalls make them effective only in highly specialized circumstances, that other warframes and weapons would be more efficient in, while its one specialized niche has been lost owing to the change in snowdome.

 

I do feel that the frost can further develop however so that it might fit a role, or several roles, unique to itself. 

 

The first would be a "bunker busting tank", which advances into close range, depending on heavy shields and armor to allow it to survive, before unleashing its abilities. However for this to happen, there needs to be a greater payoff for husbanding energy and closing under fire. This could take the form of greater damage or force multiplying status effects.

 

This however does risk infringing on the saryn's role in a group, given how her abilities are largely damage related, vs the rhino who has greater mobility and can disrupt enemies by stomping. What difference there might be between them may well lie in effective range, something which the saryn's existing abilities has an advantage over the frost.

 

Should the frost be further developed in a defensive role however, I would suggest returning the snowdome's ability to absorb an infinite amount of damage. Albeit with some manner of caveat that makes it less of an overbalanced ability against ranged enemies. Perhaps make the snowdome move with the frost after it is cast, with only its frontal field fully mitigating incoming damage, while the rear of the dome would block half of incoming fire.

 

This would make the frost something akin to a squad's riot shield, allowing the rest of the team to advance under cover, but ultimately dependant on them to defend his vulnerable sides and rear. While still useful in static defense, it would require the frost to actively turn and face heavy fire, while squadmates would need to quickly prioritize and kill enemies approaching from an undefended vector.

[Celseus]

Frost 1.0:

 

He had extremely pathetic offense.

He had way below average crowd control.

He had good defense.

 

 

 

 

Frost 2.0:

 

He has pathetic offense.

He has below average crowd control.

He has pathetic defense.

 

 

 

 

Excellent "improvements" there.

Edited February 8, 2014 by Celseus

[ArchPhaeton]

This thread again? Same people whining?

GG.

 

Frost 2.0 may not be perfect, but hopefully he will be eventually upgraded just like Rhino.

 

Also the DevStream said it: Frost was press 3, eat potato chips frame. Change was needed.

[Virtus_Dei_Est]

This thread again? Same people whining?

GG.

 

Frost 2.0 may not be perfect, but hopefully he will be eventually upgraded just like Rhino.

 

Also the DevStream said it: Frost was press 3, eat potato chips frame. Change was needed.

 

yeah, that shows how little DE plays his own game.

 

i would like to kindly invite scott to a t3 survival, he with a frost of course, go to minute 40/45 (could be more, go wild!) and try to eat a potato chip in there without being slaughtered (he can go on solo to add more spice) , and that was before the change in snowglobe.

 

really, the phrase you post as a clever and undeniable truth, is almost at the same level as the "instant gratification" one, remember that one? was epic

Edited February 8, 2014 by omega_phoenix

[Celseus]

This thread again? Same people whining?

GG.

 

Frost 2.0 may not be perfect, but hopefully he will be eventually upgraded just like Rhino.

 

Also the DevStream said it: Frost was press 3, eat potato chips frame. Change was needed.

 

^ Newb detected.

 

Scanning for experience with Frost:        ...       Scanning...scanning...None found.

Determining Credibility:                              ...       Insufficient.

Determining Category:                                 ...       Troll Post.

[Celseus]

Well written post (+1). I disagree that Snowglobe needed any sort of change. It was a defensive skill, can they blame a defensive skill for defending?

 

Were they upset that a defensive warframe was defensive? Man, the amount of backwards logic they had must be stupendous.

 

 

 

 

yeah, that shows how little DE plays his own game.

 

i would like to kindly invite scott to a t3 survival, he with a frost of course, go to minute 40/45 (could be more, go wild!) and try to eat a potato chip in there without being slaughtered (he can go on solo to add more spice) , and that was before the change in snowglobe.

 

 

If you need me to sign that petition, I'll sign it. I'd like to see how he afks and eats that bag of potato chips without having his baby teeth bashed out by an errant attack..

Edited February 8, 2014 by Celseus

[Metsudo]

Let's face it; level scaling is an issue for a lot of the current warframes, and no matter how much health DE add to snowglobe there will always be a point at which it will die within a few seconds. I do agree that It was a bit too overpowered as all ranged shots (barring explosions) are blocked, but it does need to have no health mechanic as we need as many skills as possible that don't get effected by enemy level.

 

Adding enemy types that can shoot through the dome is, in my opinion, the best way to achieve the balance that DE are trying to get. Frost will still need to keep on his toes with most, but not all, shots being blocked. Currently Grineer Napalms and Bombards are the only ones that can do that, so just adding similar effects to say the Fusion Moa beam or the Tech supra fire would give the Corpus this aspect too.

 

To be honest all the warframe skills need to be seriously reworked to make them all work regardless of enemy level. Nova; Nyx and the like are not overpowered, they are the only ones that actually work and that's the problem. The other warframes are SUB-PAR while Nova etc are nearly on par.

Edited February 8, 2014 by Metsudo

[Monolake]

If anything Nyx is press 3 and eat chips while enemies kill eachother.  Frost was one of the last frames that needed nerf (if Globe needed nerf at all)

 

And no, I dont think that Nyx is OP.

Edited February 8, 2014 by Monolake

[Ryunokage]

Well written post (+1). I disagree that Snowglobe needed any sort of change. It was a defensive skill, can they blame a defensive skill for defending?

 

Were they upset that a defensive warframe was defensive? Man, the amount of backwards logic they had must be stupendous.

 

Hey Celseus. I will have to disagree with you on that. While a defensive skill should remain defensive, the primary issue I had with snowdome is that it was largely a passive feature that you only needed to activate.

 

Retooling snowdome as I suggested, requiring players to actively turn the impermeable half against heavy oncoming fire, makes for a defensive skill that remains defensive, while at the same time requiring active player participation to be effective. Additionally, allowing snowdome to move with the frost opens up a huge range of defensive possibilities for other more mobile missions.

 

While it would certainly make snowdome more difficult to use, perhaps even more difficult then its current iteration. This is the sort of difficulty that allows good players to shine, it rewards skill. I feel that abilities like that make you feel more satisfied then something you deploy and never touch again.

 

[Fubukin]

If anything Nyx is press 3 and eat chips while enemies kill eachother.  Frost was one of the last frames that needed nerf (if Globe needed nerf at all)

 

And no, I dont think that Nyx is OP.

 

agreed. i listened to the stream and the first thought i had: "are they playing a different game than i do?"

anyone maining or even just playing frost knew that he was in no need to any reworking. he could hold his candle. weakening the globe and crippling avalanche doesn't help him getting picked more. it is rather the opposite.

[Marthrym]

Frost 1.0:

 

He had extremely pathetic offense.

He had way below average crowd control.

He had good defense.

 

 

 

 

Frost 2.0:

 

He has pathetic offense.

He has below average crowd control.

He has pathetic defense.

 

 

 

 

Excellent "improvements" there.

THIS. Simple, easy to understand, and OH SO TRUE. Thank you Sir! Let's hope DE will read this and understand it...

 

A CROWD CONTROL DEFENSIVE TANK that has no real Crowd Control abilities, has only one viable defensive ability, receives a DAMAGE "buff" (Really? A "damage buff" for a tank? That defeats ANY logic!) that is actually useless since NO level scaling for damage abilites, and is of course slow as hell and lacks the Energy pool to be a caster in the first place; and now the kicker! *Drumrolls* His ONLY viable defensive ability rendered totally useless for the exact same reason his other abilities (and many others for many other frames) are useless. Was it "OP" as people love to throw these 2 letters everywhere all the time? Maybe, but considering his other abilities are weak and useless, I say that evens out the "OPiness" of the globe.

 

All for the sake a minuscule number of "bored" players who had a simple solution to avoid boredom... PLAY ANOTHER FRAME IN T3 DEF. Seriously, no one thought about that one? And HOW is this nerf going to change that? Now the people that just used to drop their snowglobe and stay near the pod will just... STAY NEAR the pod and spam the snowglobe, changing absolutely NOTHING. As for the (apparently) very few people who, like me, used to drop their snowglobe and then help the others kill everything and run around to support them and protect them (isn't that Frost's role?), can't do that anymore and are forced to either spam the new Soapglobe or just play another frame. And by the way that nerf doesn't make other frames shine, it just makes Frost drop to their level...

 

I have a new concept you might consider DE... BUFF LACKLUSTER FRAMES instead of nerfing those that are good at what they are supposed to do! I love you guys, I really do, but sometimes I just don't understand you...

Edited February 9, 2014 by Marthrym