Frost Revisited 3/3/2014

[tris1]

Very quick ideas how to fix Frost for good:

 

Freeze - Make it freeze in an AoE. The damagecap before shattering should be 10/15/20/25% of target's max health of 100/200/300/400 damage, whichever is the highest (Scale this cap with Power Strength). Make Freeze damage 50% of total damage instantly, then the other 50% upon shattering (no matter how).

 

Ice Wave - Keep the cold proc. Also make it stagger and pushback enemies 5 meters or so (Pushback scales with Power Strength). Make it a bit wider. Make it leave an icy patch behind, which forces the cold proc on enemies walking over it and lets allies slide over it with no momentum loss.

 

Snow Globe - Could be fixed to be anything other than what it is now. Lots of good ideas have been said all over the forums here:

Version 1: Goozilla's version - Make it reduce incoming enemy damage by 40%, scalable with Power Strength (can cap at 95% or so).

Version 2: Make it more like a dome of 8 plates. These plates spin around and each plate have a seperate amount of health, to spread the damage more evenly. Plates regenerate their health over time, more so when not under fire. If a plate shatters, it is lost, but Freeze (by passing through or splashing onto the globe) can repair plates as well as "revive" lost plates!

No matter the version: Make its slowing radius also scale with Power Range btw... >_>

 

Avalanche - Make it freeze targets reliably. Freezes targets for 4/5/6/7 seconds (Affected by Power Duration). Just like for Freeze, make Avalanche damage 50% of total damage instantly, then the other 50% when the freezing effect ends. Leave an icy atmosphere behind which very slightly slows enemies walking in it, and boosts allies armor (affected by Power Strength) when they remain in the atmosphere. (Could give armor to the globe if it remains in a "health"-version)

 

Then you have Freeze for a quickthrown ability (even when reloading etc) which can freeze in a small area for a long time, but don't freeze too reliably (can shatter early).

Ice Wave is for greatly defending an area, keeping enemies away from the area with the pushback and lingering slow, as well as provide a minor boost for ally travelling

Snow Globe is the main defensive protection in Frost's arsenal, obviously.

Avalanche is your seminuke, ally armorbooster and RELIABLE freeze, but not as potentially longlasting as the #1 ability.

 

Other ideas: Instead of having Freeze and Avalanche deal lots of initial and/or shattering damage (still some damage, but less than now), make it so frozen enemies suffer a bit more damage taken from any damaging sources while frozen. That would scale really well.

these are some very good ideas hopefully someone takes notice

[Monolake]

Also regarding Avalanche freeze state consider the pure fun factor for the entire team of shattering the frozen mobs. It was the most cool cc!

[Shadow-Blades]

If the globe can be killed, then it shouldn't be able to be killed by a timer.

 

Yes just like Rhino's Iron skin. Very similar situation actually.

[(PSN)metalsnakesolid]

Most of the suggestions that are going around now (armor rating,more hp, segregated damage, ice healing) are really just ways of having the globe last longer, which would really just make it work the same as it did before, so you might as well keep it simple and put it back the way it was. More importantly, the changes to SG have not solved the issues that DE stated in the first place.

To be clear, i'm talking about the issues that were stated in this thread--> https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/172673-frost-252014/ and also the ones talked about in Devstream 22.  Most of these issues i didn't agree with in the first place though that's just my one opinion.  However I think it's important to keep in mind why it was that the abilities were changed in the first place in order to come up with solutions that will actually solve those issues without getting sidetracked.

 

Quoting from the post mentioned above:

" Snowglobe being a solely duration based skill created issues of viability of other frames in the "Defense" mission types, as well as a skew towards pace of gameplay.

The goal is to get Snowglobe, and Frost overall, in a place of power and action, but does not render gameplay optional, but we need everyone's experiences to get it right as we continue to make changes."

 

OK, no offense to DERebecca as she is just relaying information from the devs, but this is kind of hard to follow. I may be just a bit slow or these statements seem too much like how the tech guy at your company would answer a question in order to confuse you into not questioning him further because he really isn't sure why he did what he did.  From reading the posts in this thread, i think it's safe to say that most agree that Frost needs a change, however there seems to be a difference of opinion as to why. So i think you guys need to be clearer on what your objective is to see if the community generally agrees with it first, and then start working on solutions, otherwise, you may be dealing with the wrong problem, or a problem that most just don't care about.  If we can all (or mostly all) agree on what the issue is, everyone can focus more on the right solution by taking into consideration how it would solve the actual problem.

I really wanted to understand the reasoning behind the changes so I was trying to understand the reasons and goals stated above before forming an opinion. Breaking down the statements above, this is what I understand them to be saying:

The problem is:

!)"...being a solely duration based skill created issues of viability of other frames in the "Defense"...." = Frost's SG works too well in Defense because you can't kill it, so it makes it seem as if other frames are no good at Defense

2)"...as well as a skew towards pace of gameplay." = It also affects the pace of the gameplay,i'm guessing in a negative way

The goal is:

3)"...get Snowglobe, and Frost overall, in a place of power and action, but does not render gameplay optional..." = Get Frost more active in missions. But do it in a way that doesn't exclude everyone else from participating...or maybe the 'gameplay optional' part refers to Frost himself not just sitting around casting snowglobe every thirty seconds, not sure here

 

If I got any of these interpretations wrong I hope someone from the team will correct me. Like I said I think it's important that we all have a clear understanding of what the purpose is here.

 

So now for my opinion:

- Frost needs a clearer role definition. With an ability like SG, he was put in a defensive role (doesn't matter if it was meant this way or if it was solely the player response), which I think was fine.  Buffing his offensive and nerfing his defensive ability is obviously not the way to go if we want to keep him in this role.  If we want Frost to be more active in the battlefield(3), by all means, change up his offensive or CC abilities to make him more useful, but the HP on SG just makes the player worry more about keeping the snowglobe alive and leaving him no time to do other things, which totally defeats the purpose.  Either put SG back the way it was, maybe limiting the number of simultaneous globes and/or lowering the time limit, OR just change it up completely to make it more dynamic (see suggestions below) while still leaving the player options to help out the team in other ways. 

-Don't turn Frost into an offensive frame.  I don't mind a damage buff here and there, but damage buffs based on set numbers quickly become useless at higher levels.  If you're gonna change up or buff his abilities, balance out things like their CC effects. CC abilities scale much better to be useful at higher levels.  Having abilities that are useful regardless of the level your playing is the key to players using them. If you don't want them to do just one thing, then make the other things he can do better, but don't take away the one thing he can do well.

-Think of synergy with other frames abilities - This applies to all warframe abilities. This is a coop game, and the more you can encourage teamwork the better. Having CC abilities is a basic step towards this(1). For example, Loki's Radial Disarm has good synergy with any AoE ability because it brings enemies closer together. I think we need more stuff like that, and Frost's abilities can be tweaked or changed in a way where it will encourage the player to use them because it will help the entire team (1 and 2), but also keep him from becoming OP because he still relies on the team.

 

Here's a suggestion for an ability set for Frost based on what i've said and many good suggestions already mentioned in this thread:

 

-Freeze - Does minor damage and freezes enemies the same way it does now, but it should also weaken the enemie's armor or shield by a set percentage (ex. 20%/30%/40%/50% affected by mods but with a reasonable cap) or similar to how cold status works on ice wave but maybe more powerful since its limited to single target. This way it can still be useful at higher levels while encouraging teamwork. Synergizes well with abilities like Mag's Bullet Attractor to bring down powerful single enemies faster. The cap for damage they take on freeze should be a percentage of the enemies max health (maybe 10%/15%/20%/25% affected by mods), not a set number 

 

-Ice wave - Maybe keep it the way it is now, the 100% cold status and being AoE is what makes it useful. I think now it's just a matter of balancing it out how status effects work in general which is a whole other matter.

 

-Snow Globe - bring it back to the way it was to make it useful again ORRR how about this? Change Snow Globe into Snow Storm - An AoE with the same radius as the Globe with an effect similar to what happens inside the snow globe now, a radius of powerful cold winds that causes slow down (30%/40%/50%/60% affected by mods), Any allies (including a pod) inside the area have (40%/50%/60%/70% affected by mods with a 90% cap) damage reduction. The storm has a duration and radius affected by mods the same way SG is now. Synergy- Any elemental damage dealt within the area becomes the combination of that element with cold damage (ex. Ember's World on Fire would cause Blast damage in that area). Note: This effect could be applied to other elemental frame's AoE abilities like Ember's Fire Blast)

 

-Avalanche - As some have already suggested, Making the freeze effect slightly longer would make it more useful at higher levels. 

 

This post is already way too long. Everyone keep on posting your opinions, hopefully it will help the devs come up with a more final solution soon. And thanx DE for providing me with many many hours of entertainment. Hope to see the newer updates on PS4 soon!

[GamingEntity]

(snip)

 

-Snow Globe - bring it back to the way it was to make it useful again ORRR how about this? Change Snow Globe into Snow Storm - An AoE with the same radius as the Globe with an effect similar to what happens inside the snow globe now, a radius of powerful cold winds that causes slow down (30%/40%/50%/60% affected by mods), Any allies (including a pod) inside the area have (40%/50%/60%/70% affected by mods with a 90% cap) damage reduction. The storm has a duration and radius affected by mods the same way SG is now. Synergy- Any elemental damage dealt within the area becomes the combination of that element with cold damage (ex. Ember's World on Fire would cause Blast damage in that area). Note: This effect could be applied to other elemental frame's AoE abilities like Ember's Fire Blast)

 

(snip)

If we take out Snow Globe all together, then the reason we would have to take it out would be to that Frost's role is no longer a defense/supporter but now a damage dealer/tank.  Changing SG to the one you suggested would support that change.  It's a cool idea (derp), but it wouldn't answer the question that you broke down for us.

 

On another hand, I do agree that we all need to think of what the deal is with Frost.  Is it a niche problem where he doesn't fall into one, or too far into one? Could it be that his abilities don't synergies with each other, or with other frames? People are confused, and come up with solutions because they're confused; unfortunately the community does not come to a consensus because everyone is interpreting Frost differently.  The question now is how can we get everyone on the same page?

 

For me, I feel that his skill set gears towards supportive/defense roles.  His polarities (especially the prime ones) push him to the support side rather than the damage side.  If he was a damage frame, then Snow Globe wouldn't exist and we wouldn't be having these discussions/arguments.

 

There are only two frames that produce external shields, which are Frost and Volt.  Should we take Snow Globe out all together? 

 

Post Script: Now that I think about it, in most fantasy MMO's where there are wizards specializing in frost magic, the consensus is that frost magic in those games tend to hit hard and slow everything down.  In other games, the wizard can cast an aura or shield, generally called frost armor, that reduces damage.  Could it be that everyone wants to achieve this same value?

 

If so, then change Snow Globe to "Frost Armor" and have it reduce damage to shields by...30%...and let it last for about 25 seconds; it will affect team mates and mods will improve it. (inspiration by the post above me)

Edited March 9, 2014 by GamingEntity

[RSITH]

Cool but the the timer doe

[(PSN)metalsnakesolid]

If we take out Snow Globe all together, then the reason we would have to take it out would be to that Frost's role is no longer a defense/supporter but now a damage dealer/tank.  Changing SG to the one you suggested would support that change.  It's a cool idea (derp), but it wouldn't answer the question that you broke down for us.

 

The change I suggested in the ability wasn't meant to be geared towards damage. The ability i'm suggesting does no damage at all by itself, just applies slow and gives players incoming damage reduction, similar to the "Frost Armor" you mentioned, which makes it a defensive ability. I think it's important to give abilities more scope though, hence the part about synergy I talked about. Since one of the problems mentioned is that the viability of other frames is questioned, this type of damage dealing thru synergy will help, because Frost won't be able to do the damage part alone so it encourages teamwork with other types of frames. I agree with everything else you say.

 

And when it comes to defining Frost's role, i know it's not that easy to get a full consensus from players because there may be many who want to argue the 'let me play how I want' point. But i'll just clarify to all that its not about making you play just one way, it's about defining a frame's strengths and weaknesses so you can better balance his abilities and then you can customize your play style from there through modding and equipment and the type of missions you like to play. I think thats the point of defining the roles, otherwise there's no point in having so many different warframes in the game (other than cosmetic variety)

Edited March 9, 2014 by (PS4)metalsnakesolid

[CyberneticSaturn]

Well, just looking over everyone's posts, I think we can basically summarize the community's general opinion as Freeze is worthless and should be some kind of AoE and/or not break on damage, pre-nerf Avalanche was a good power but the current version is pretty terrible, snowglobe has to be fundamentally altered (making it mobile, changing it to plates, etc.) because armor and health buffs won't solve its problems, and that tweaking numbers will not solve Frost's problems because they stem directly from the design of his powers rather than their numbers. 

Edited March 9, 2014 by CyberneticSaturn

[killacam8806]

Snow globe isn't the issue..My man Frost just needs a complete overhaul in my opinion. but if globe is getting looked at maybe take it away altogether and combine it with his avalanche,and give him a whole new skill in that slot...maybe something like Cryo rounds for the squad or and Ice wall you can put up for cover when you are in a bad spot...

[Soulie]

If you do that, allow us to shoot through the globe. Because if there will be tons and tons of globes that have to expire before we can shoot that area, that wont help.

Wouldn't it be crazy if shooting out of the globe added ice damage, but shooting in reduced damage (reducing projectile speed)? 

 

I think Volt my be a little jealous either way.

[Adamant_Pariah]

I like the idea of getting rid of the timer, If the power has health it shouldnt be timed ie (decoy& molt). Applying the armor would help out and would give

 

frost some synergy with valkyr. I would like to see his first ability get worked on as well, its not really useful as it is right now, the damage is okay, but the

 

power could be changed up to give him some variety. I like the idea of repairing your globe with this ability, but the balance of how much it repairs and

 

how much it costs to cast have to be balanced correctly. if its just cheaper to cast a new globe then to use freeze multiple times to repair it, people would 

 

it should be cheaper to maintain a globe thats already cast, then to cast a new one. But to balance that out, you can only reapir your globe by going 

 

outside of it and hitting it with freeze. It gives a risk and reward to repairing it, you cant just sit in the safety of it and spam freeze you have to leave and 

 

put yourself at risk to keep the globe going. The other thing his freeze could use would be an AOE effect, keep the effect of one enemy being frozen if 

 

directly hit, but add an effect similar to the ice traps in the void if you cast it on the ground. Essentially giving it a CC function if you choose to cast it at a 

 

chokepoint. Maybe with an area of 5 meters and scales with rank, and lasts 15 sec at all ranks, and is unaffected by duration mods. It would help cut

 

down on globe being spammed to slow enemies. last but not least 2-3 globes at a time. Keep one on the objective, and two for potential revives of your

 

team. By getting rid of globes duration, now opens up mod slots for strength or range, putting him where i think he belongs as a battle caster.

[(PSN)GR13V4NC3]

I know this is not the topic, but can we get an Ash Revisited Thread going, DERebecca/Devs. The poor guys needs some TLC.

[tris1]

I know this is not the topic, but can we get an Ash Revisited Thread going, DERebecca/Devs. The poor guys needs some TLC.

once the fix frames they still haven't fixed where they have done some nerfing, buffing then probably they will. but if they do it before they fix what they have currently ruined/changed im going to continue being lead down the path of just uninstalling warframe

[Hueminator]

Valkyr's base armor is almost double what frost can get with high steel fiber.

More like 3x

 

Applying armor value to the globe is a good idea.  However I would like to see either

 

1) Buff to frost base armor

2) Gives Snow Globe armor multiplier. Globe armor = Multiplier factor * Frost armor.  Multiplier factor increases as you increase the level of snow globe (1.1, 1.2 ,1.3, 1.4 or so)

[Auxeus]

Dev's consideration for armor reinforce is simple i like the idea however a timer should be nessesary for not to overfill the tileset with uncancellable globes that might cause performance stability issue as well gameplay frustrations.

 

Timerless globe did not also fix the definate issue that started the nerf: "Well, a Frost just casted 99 timer-less globes and afk to buy a drink, then call the game boring".

 

We first had the invulnerable globe with timer, then now we have health globe without timer, both types are exploitable. To balance it should be good at where it is now.

[gell]

People really need to stop suggesting that DE remove the timer on snow globe. Think about it first: what are the ramifications of this change, and what am I trying to achieve with this change?

 

I think (PS4)metalsnakesolid addressed some of this above, but really, answer these questions before you suggest something so silly.

 

Removing the timer means having to possibly retain that data in the game for the entirety of the mission. And what are you trying to achieve with this again? To counteract the whole purpose DE was changing it in the first place? (to keep the players from using snow globe in a "fire and forget" manner) You can't let anything in the game, anything, be indefinite. If you want the timer removed, I suggest replacing your suggestion with a 5 minute timer, but even then it's counterproductive to continue this line of thought. We can't let the player place something that big, for that long.

 

Snow Globe doesn't need tiny tweaks, it needs fundamental change, which I suggested.

 

Btw, while the ice leaders do have an enviable snow globe, they can be taken down in any explosion, so they aren't that amazing. Pulling that thing around with you also isn't really helpful to his team, either. I do think the look is nicer than Frost's though, and it's very similar to the look I wanted for Frost, with the "panels" suggestion.

Edited March 9, 2014 by gell

[Xamuswing]

What I saw with the no duration having no forethought was what about infested? It would be extremely unbalanced for them. No duration = unlimited CC for the infested.

[LukeAura]

What I saw with the no duration having no forethought was what about infested? It would be extremely unbalanced for them. No duration = unlimited CC for the infested.

It's not a full CC for infested, they're only slowed and the ability to shoot them is limited by the fact you have to be in the globe so it doesn't ever obstruct your shot, which is the range where infested tend to be able to hit you as well. The slow doesn't scale currently as well, but if it did it would require a large amount of range boosts to overcome the limitation, and specialized builds towards one ability tend to already make content easy.

It would be powerful, but not any where near as bad as old bastille which with a proper team could be made to indefinitely hold up all Infested. 

[CaptainPeanut]

I pretty much agree with removing duration and adding armor. I'd also suggest either increasing Frost's armor rating a bit to work better with snow globe's survivability, or just boosting the globe's health. The suggestions for a limit for how many globes can be placed also sound very reasonable.

A suggestion I have to try and make Frost a bit better at defense or solo play would be to give Snow Globe a small AOE blast when it dies that will apply a cold proc to any enemies it hits. It wouldn't need to do any damage, but slowing enemies down would be a nice touch.

[Shifty_Shuffler]

What about totally replacing snow globe with something else. I dunno, Ice Wall. Create a massive wall of ice the is pretty darn tough and freezes any enemies near it, only you can't shoot through it. Or an area of denial ability that instantly freezes any enemy entering it, or some kind of freezing mist that jams weapons up making them fire extremely slowly.

[Haif]

Frosts only real niche is when Snowglobe is an absolute safe zone, because then it has the power to justify being used in extreme lategame situations like high wave defense and long survival runs.

 

If his Snowglobe is killable *at all*, then he rapidly becomes useless at those areas and you would be far better off with a frame like Rhino or Nyx or Nova who can actually shut down groups of those extremely high level enemies with ease. Or Trinity, who simply makes your entire party ignore said enemies.

 

Frosts damage is at the bottom of the barrel, his utility is mediocre at best, and there is not a frame in existence that has the health and armor to eat constant dps from level 40+ enemies without the use of abilities, so hes not a tank.

 

I hate to say this, considering everyone is hopping on the rework hype-wagon, but Frosts Snowglobe either needs to be reverted back to being invincible so that he has a place in the game, Avalanche/Ice Wave need to do a lot more damage and/or have longer-lasting cc, or Frost needs to be deleted from the game because he is completely outclassed by the likes of Rhino, Nyx, Nova, and Trinity.

Edited March 9, 2014 by Haif

[quietcanary]

Globe would have to take at least 10k damage before mods for me to be fine with the change. Honestly though it being nerfed at all is unnecessary

[Wrath_Of_Chrysalis]

 Frost needs to be deleted from the game 

No. Never.

[Darkreaper006]

give Frost a passive ability to have 0 shields drained during any missions with Ice, give Ember a Passive ability to not get effected by fire (or get -75% of fire damage) ect ect... possibilities are endless with the Passive's, and I say there should be alot of Passives.

[TheDoctah]

I would say take off the timer, one way to make players not spam snowglobe is to also make players have to tap snowglobe again to cancel it so they can summon another one. Rather than having to wait for the timer to go out so you can use snowglobe quickly in a tight situation. Might be better ideas, but it's a thought.