Frost: A Fallen Frame, Now Fallen Further.

[Toesty5]

I've posted this somewhere else, but someone suggested that I post it on the official forums, so that's what I'm doing now. It's yet another post about how Frost needs to be buffed, but I think it's really important to buff Frost in a way that keeps him viable at high levels.

 

For example, simply doubling the health of Snowglobe would be an ineffective fix. While it would survive longer, the problem of Frost being useless at high levels still stands.

 

Frost's abilities need to be buffed in a functional way (such as, adding greater utility) and not a numerical way. Even if all of Frost's damage abilities were doubled in power, Frost would still not be strong, and would hardly even be viable, at high levels. Frost should be a powerful CC frame. 

 

Anyways, here is the post:

 

 

I've made a post about something similar to this before, but with the recent change to Avalanche, I feel that more needs to be said.

 

As many players know, Snowglobe previously had infinite health, and was only destroyed at the end of its duration. This was, perhaps, too powerful, and it was given a finite amount of health instead.

 

A large amount of Frost players previously used Snowglobe only, but the nerf made Snowglobe very ineffective at higher levels. So, they adapted, trying to find new ways to play Frost.

 

Frost's first power, Freeze, breaks when the target takes damage. In a game where most singular enemies, even at high levels, take mere seconds to kill, the ability to freeze one enemy is extremely weak, and is only useful in very rare situations. As a result of this, Frost players who tried to adapt still did not use Freeze.

 

Ice Wave deals a flat amount of damage. At high levels, a flat amount of damage tends to do very little. So, building around Ice Wave is not very viable at high levels.

 

Snow Globe breaks very easily at high levels, so it has fallen out of favor. Even with complete maximization of power strength, its health is still lacking.

 

The change to Avalanche that coincided with the Snowglobe nerf made it cast faster and freeze enemies for a certain duration. It deals flat damage, so its damage component is mostly useless at high levels. However, its ability to AoE Freeze was useful, and so many Frost players looking to use Frost in an effective way settled on this. Using a Power Range + Power Efficiency build, Frost became a very effective CC frame.

 

But then, in a recent patch, the freeze duration from Avalanche was substantially lowered. The freeze lasts about 1 or 2 seconds. So, now, Frost is no longer useful as a CC frame.

 

At this point, Frost has no more effective abilities at high levels. Freeze is too situational, Ice Wave deals flat damage, Snowglobe breaks, and Avalanche no longer has a useful CC component, and simply deals flat damage.

 

At this point, I'd like to make some points about Frost, instead of a summary of how the meta around him has shifted.

In Warframe, at high levels, abilities which deal a specific amount of damage become nearly useless, as enemy health scales much more rapidly than flat-damage abilities. It is generally regarded that abilities that flat damage, utility-lacking abilities are mostly useless at endgame.

 

Personally, I feel that every frame should have something useful to offer their team at high levels. A Warframe is like a playstyle, and in my opinion, it is a problem if a certain playstyle is almost entirely useless at endgame. Freeze is extremely limited in its use, and the rest of Frost's abilities either deal flat damage or provide some kind of defensive benefit for a very short period of time. These short periods of time are too short to be of much use to a team.

 

Here are some traits about Frost currently:

• The slowest frame. Rhino is faster because he has an ability which allows him to travel.

• Besides slowing enemies with cold damage, Frost's defensive abilities do almost nothing at high levels.

• Frost's offensive abilities, unlike other frames with offensive abilities that can scale off of gun damage, deal only flat damage, and as such are useless at high levels.

So, a Frost in a high level mission is very slow, deals low damage, and has defensive abilities which provide a few short seconds of benefit. He can also slow enemies.

 

...Unfortunately, that's it. That is all that Frost has to offer a high level team, currently. I believe that the Avalanche change in 12.4 has made Frost, who had already fallen to what I believe was an over-nerfed state, even worse.

I think that some changes to Frost are direly needed, as he now has no abilities which are good enough to justify a slot in a high level mission. Does anyone else agree?

 

The main point of this post is that I'd like to raise awareness to the community, and ideally DE, that Frost desperately needs changes.

Edited March 7, 2014 by Toesty5

[OniDax]

I feel this way about a few frames, and I think it touches on the issue of balance. I'm playing Excalibur Prime right now, and when I look at not abilities, but stats of Frost, Rhino, Ash, and Valkyr, I question the point of playing as Excalibur. Excalibur's supposed to be the balanced frame, meaning that other frames are strong in some areas and weak in others. Doesn't seem the case for these four. Their stats are the same or better than Excalibur. Balancing should mean that one frame's strengths make up for another frames deficiencies during gameplay. Balance would mean Rhino having stronger armor but less shields (strongest armor in the game but slowest speed in the game - Rhino's max speed with Vanguard and max Rush should only be Excalibur's max speed without max Rush - maxed out should be the slowest frame in the game), Frost less armor but more shields or power, Valkyr less armor (just look at the frame) but more power, Ash more power less shields (stealth makes up for it).

 

The same should apply to abilities. Not sure about every frames abilities, but if things like snow globe do less damage to enemies then it should slow them down and last longer. ALL ult wipeout/crowd control abilities should have limited range.

[Psychus]

What high level are you talking about? Because if you're talking about anything over 35, frames aren't being balanced for that. I hope you realize that. DE has said that themselves. They're not balancing for endless survival and defense, they're balancing for pluto, the currently highest level of challenge, in which frost does just fine.

[LordxTempest]

Lol, Endless defense is not endgame so balancing frames should not revolve around that otherwise lower levels the warframes would be OP

[direcyphre]

What high level are you talking about? Because if you're talking about anything over 35, frames aren't being balanced for that. I hope you realize that. DE has said that themselves. They're not balancing for endless survival and defense, they're balancing for pluto, the currently highest level of challenge, in which frost does just fine.

So what you're saying is, even with all the power strength mods in the world, his direct damage abilities don't need to kill anything beyond 35 because thats just the way it was balanced? Seems like if that were the case, at the max rank of the ability itself, it would need to reliably decimate anything at level 35 without additional help. If it requires Blind Rage, Intensify, and his helmet in order to make snowglobe a viable defense, and for ice wave and avalanche to kill anything, it's leagues behind everything else, and nowhere near where it should be.

[LostShadow]

But then, in a recent patch, the freeze duration from Avalanche was substantially lowered. The freeze lasts about 1 or 2 seconds. So, now, Frost is no longer useful as a CC frame.

im only sad because of this ^

 

i do not want high dmg on him i want CC.. because he is defensive frame, and you nerf him to the ground 

Edited March 7, 2014 by LostShadow

[Jandor]

Freeze: Scrap the projectile, just make it a no damage frontal cone that freezes enemies. Good 'oh crap' button.

 

Ice Wave: Frost lays down a copy of the void frozen ground effect in front of him, it affects any enemies that walk on it and applies a minor cold damage DoT effect.

Bonus: Tenno that slide on it get a speed boost, give Frost some mobility.

 

Snow Globe: Have it stay with Frost as he moves around.

Alternative option: Ice wall, it's the old snow globe but in wall form. Enemies that walk through it get a cold status effect applied. Bullets don't pass through from either side.

 

Avalanche: Was fine, pre-nerf.

 

There we go, a CC Frost good for every mission type and every enemy without being an OP wrecking ball. IMHO.

Edited March 7, 2014 by Jandor

[(PSN)Alpha-Omega-X3]

I did not believe it untill i seen it with my own eyes. Snow Globe is absolute garbage now. Was playing with my friend who fave character is Frost Prime and was up against level 15 Grineer. I think it was about 8 of them firing at snow globe at the same time. Now keep in mind a full level Focus and Frost Helmet Squall (So a total of 45% power strength) and the globe went down in 8 seconds flat. This happen several times and was absolutely insane. People who were calling for a nerf on Snow Globe have been drinking to much haterade. Here is how Snow Globe should be IMO: Give it back its infinite health but make it a flat 30 seconds with no ability to increase duration or the ability to cast it more than one at a time (OR) Have no timer at all and have the health it has now that increases with power strength, but increased to a amount that is actually fair and useful where it can actually take some damage. Possible double it and only be able to cast one at a time.

 

This is just my thoughts on snow globe. Freeze should have a buff aswell. Someone mentioned freeze enemies in a cone radius for a certain amout of seconds and deal no damage. That would be good. Maybe only slowing bosses though. But first and formost, fix Snow Globe.

[LukeAura]

There we go, a CC Frost good for every mission type and every enemy without being an OP wrecking ball. IMHO.

Wouldn't be my ideas for a Frost retooling but I would enjoy playing that all the same! 

[Senoph]

Maybe make Ice a more effective debuff that reduces the armor of a target and causes a damage over time effect. Also increases damage from impact. I was thinking about this last night, and it seems like it would make sense if they made Frost an effective tank/debuffer. I don't think changing Snowglobe back would be the best fix, I think it was just a band-aid. Obviously without infinite health snowglobes, Frost doesn't have a lot to bring to the party. Now without the CC on Avalanche, he has even less. It seems like a good opportunity to consider reworking Frost's role in a group, and I think he already is somewhat of a tank/debuffer since he can chill and slow enemies. A buff to cold damage and status might do the trick.

 

I'd also just scrap Freeze or completely replace it. It's pretty useless on all accounts.