Did Everyone Just Forget About Ash?

[RealPandemonium]

1. You just turned this into a Loki vs. Ash thing. I thought this wasn't about that.

2. Loki can't cross a room "without requiring a target". The fact that he has to place one first does not eliminate that requirement. Comparing two abilities to one is not a fair comparison and has been the bane of Switch teleport vs. teleport conversations since their creation.

3. You could ignore strength mods in favor of duration if you wanted. Don't act like it isn't an option. Just like Loki could ignore duration and go with strength mods (it would be incredibly stupid though).

4. That's incorrect. Maximizing Duration cripples radial disarm. Maximizing power strength cripples... what? Your spamability?

http://warframe-builder.com/Warframes/Builder/Ash/t_30_12401120012_3-10-5-6-6-5-7-3-5-12-1-10-13-7-3-14-8-5-49-2-10-61-5-3-63-0-3_63-7-12-8-49-8-7-9-f-f-61-4-6-6-13-13-14-9-f-f-3-18_2/en/1-0-1

http://goo.gl/KAq0U7

 

That's a one forma build, from there you could build your Ash in a few different ways. You could slap on his other two abilities and call it a day. You could forma those slots and add health and shields. You could forma those slots and add range mods. etc.

 

I've heard all of these arguments before, I don't need you to repeat them. Especially not when their rebuttals are littered across the forums.

 

None of that had anything to do with the balance between Smokescreen and Invisibility.

1. You were the one who took issue with my suggestion because Loki has a similar skill.

 

2. That doesn't change the fact that Ash cannot do that, period, with any combination of his skills.

 

3. Ignoring strength mods makes two of his skills mediocre (pretty dire in the case of Shuriken).

 

4. I wasn't suggesting that you equip Narrow Minded.  Doing a 9 Fleeting expertise and a maxed Streamline brings you to 70% efficiency with only -40% duration.  With max Continuity and Constitution you end up with +18% duration.  You could also forgo Fleeting Expertise or use an even lower-rank of it.  Either way Loki has ample mod points to maximize all of his skills.  Ash not only has a thinner margin to work with duration-wise but also has more competition for his slots. 

 

Lengthening Smoke Screen's duration a bit would allow players to get away with fewer duration mods to make the skill effective. I don't want to have to choose between my Zoren and Blade Storm.

Edited March 9, 2014 by RealPandemonium

[SquirmyBurrito]

A

wut

[RealPandemonium]

I messed up posting that initially :p

[SquirmyBurrito]

1. You were the one who took issue with my suggestion because Loki has a similar skill.

 

2. That doesn't change the fact that Ash cannot do that, period, with any combination of his skills.

 

3. Ignoring strength mods makes two of his skills mediocre (pretty dire in the case of Shuriken).

 

4. I wasn't suggesting that you equip Narrow Minded.  Doing a 9 Fleeting expertise and a maxed Streamline brings you to 70% efficiency with only -40% duration.  With max Continuity and Constitution you end up with +18% duration.  You could also forgo Fleeting Expertise or use an even lower-rank of it.  Either way Loki has ample mod points to maximize all of his skills.  Ash not only has a thinner margin to work with duration-wise but also has more competition for his slots. 

 

Lengthening Smoke Screen's duration a bit would allow players to get away with fewer duration mods to make the skill effective. I don't want to have to choose between my Zoren and Blade Storm.

 

1. I took issue with how your proposed change would throw a wrench in the previous balance between the two abilities (it had little to do with the frames themselves).

2. It makes a world of difference. Switch Teleport cannot move Loki to another spot without having a target, just like Teleport.

3. Ignoring range mods makes two of Loki's skills pretty bad (dire in the case of Radial Disarm). As seen in the build I posted, this isn't an either or situation as you could fit both max strength and max duration on Ash at the same time.

4. Nope. You can't maximize all of Loki's skills at the same time. Maximizing Invisibility negatively impacts Radial Disarm and Switch Teleport. With Loki you have three main choices. Maximize invisibility. Maximize Radial Disarm. Or somewhere in between. With Ash your main choices are: Sacrifice range but maximize duration and strength. Or Maximize strength and counter the efficiency loss while sacrificing some duration. 

 

I'd argue that both have the same amount 'slot competition'. Loki has Range+Duration+Efficiency, Ash has Strength+Duration+Efficiency(range doesn't matter much IMO).

 

Okay, and giving Invisibility a Radial Stun would help alleviate worries over his squishiness. I also don't get the Zoren vs. Blade Storm dilemma. What do the two have to do with each other? As you can see in the builds I presented you can fit ample duration mods in your build while retaining space for the strength mods.

 

Smokescreen also costs less energy than Invisibility.

Edited March 9, 2014 by SquirmyBurrito

[fatpig84]

Ash only needs to get rid of Blade storm and replace it with multiple clones that attack the enemy.

Make teleport free look or a "teleport strike" ability where he stuns the target and stuns everything within a small radius (like 5m to 10m).

 

Then he is good.

[Kurayami2]

I'd just like to ask from all other ash users. Do you guys tend to have your sentinel die all the time on higher lvl missions while doing bladestorm. I know at some point DE fixed the whole sentinel dying while casting but lately I've been seeing the same effect.

As for the tweeks for ash, DE should get themselves together again they did a cool job on ember and other frames, mags pull for exemple while not doing so much good on other ahem* saryn (from a friends point of view) So yeah hopefully they just not touching him because of a stealth gameplay or whatever but its still annoying how we have to deal with him as it is.

 

Still my fave frame though ; )

[LordofTibera]

Completely underwhelming frame, and like Banshee has been completely forgotten. Guess we're waiting for Stealth 2.0.

[TwiceDead]

A miserable little pile of secrets!

But enough talk... Have at you! 

 

Anyway, yeah, Ash seems to have been heavily neglected by DE.

And pretty much this. He's still fun to play though, occasionally. 

 

However I will say that I haven't experimented much with Ash, so I can't really comment on where he shines if he does. He's damn fun to play though with his fancy blade-storm and 400% stealth-melee damage multiplier. Makes me curious if the smoke-screen stun can be manipulated into a mass-stun ability like Radial Blind... 

Edited March 9, 2014 by TwiceDead

[SquirmyBurrito]

But enough talk... Have at you! 

 

And pretty much this. He's still fun to play though, occasionally. 

 

However I will say that I haven't experimented much with Ash, so I can't really comment on where he shines if he does. He's damn fun to play though with his fancy blade-storm and 400% stealth-melee damage multiplier. Makes me curious if the smoke-screen stun can be manipulated into a mass-stun ability like Radial Blind... 

 

With maximized stretch it can become a large two second crowd stun...

[Llyssa]

You guys do realize that when melee 6.0 hits, he'll be the ultimate in godmode, right?

[SquirmyBurrito]

You guys do realize that when melee 6.0 hits, he'll be the ultimate in godmode, right?

 

I doubt it. Or did DE say that Melee X.0 is going to buff him? If you're talking about his Smokescreen melee buff that would also apply to Loki and Excal (if the wiki is right).

[TwiceDead]

With maximized stretch it can become a large two second crowd stun...

Yeah I just tested it with Overextended and Stretch. It works, alright, but as you said it only lasts for two seconds, and spamming it is kind of impossible thanks to power still in use. It works though, you could argue that adding stretch would be worth it. Overextended though? with it's 60% less damage? ... You could if you want to, but I don't see why you'd want to as the scale really doesn't make up for the loss of damage... Maybe if it was spammable. Maybe if you're only running smoke-screen and teleport as your selected powers, on high-level maps where utility is king. 

Just my two cents. 

Edited March 9, 2014 by TwiceDead

[SquirmyBurrito]

Yeah I just tested it with Overextended and Stretch. It works, alright, but as you said it only lasts for two seconds, and spamming it is kind of impossible thanks to power still in use. It works though, you could argue that adding stretch would be worth it. Overextended though? with it's 60% less damage? ... You could if you want to, but I don't see why you'd want to as the scale really doesn't make up for the loss of damage... Maybe if it was spammable. Maybe if you're only running smoke-screen and teleport as your selected powers, on high-level maps where utility is king. 

Just my two cents. 

 

I was thinking you could pair it with a max Fleeting expertise to help with its spamability... but there really is no reason to use it like that. Well, I guess if you have a Blessing build trinity on your team it could be worth doing. Assuming your team doesn't someone like Banshee on it.

[Azamagon]

omg is that a castlevania reference?

Yup, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night! Great PS1 game :)

 

But enough talk... Have at you! 

 

And pretty much this. He's still fun to play though, occasionally. 

 

However I will say that I haven't experimented much with Ash, so I can't really comment on where he shines if he does. He's damn fun to play though with his fancy blade-storm and 400% stealth-melee damage multiplier. Makes me curious if the smoke-screen stun can be manipulated into a mass-stun ability like Radial Blind... 

Haha, perfect continuation ;)

 

Anyway, I play with Ash A LOT (if I would pick a fav, it's either Ash or Loki, I'm a sucker for stealthy characters :P), and he is a very strong solo character no doubt (and once again, I play solo 99.9% of the time...)

 

I think one of his strongest gamemodes is in Survival. He is fast, is pseudo-invincible in stealth and has quite nice tanky stats. Most important is to keep up Smoke Screen as much as possible. As a stun, it's not the best of course (Radial Blind is far superior) but due to it covering your &#!, making your approach into stealth far safer than Loki's invisibility, I would say it's a REALLY good skill! I manage quite often to go up to 40-ish minutes with him alone, so he is definitely viable there.

 

I just wish his other skills did SOMETHING more, like:

Shuriken could blind briefly, Bladestorm forceprocs Viral and knocks down the attacked targets, Teleport becomes freeaim, has no animation derpiness at all and grants Ash a brief melee attackspeed boost. That'd make him viable enough before making a more thorough rebalancing of him.

[Onae]

No one forgot about ash, just no one really cares. He is a stealth character, much like loki but ash has a balance between damage abilities and utility. He is not nova or rhino, and no one wants him to be nova or rhino. He is fine where he is. A fun ninja frame. Not an op cc/damage god. Don't plead for a buff because de will just F*** it up like everything else.

[Shashu]

I just recently redone my post about Ash which feels better, but its a few tweakage on his skills which could be nice depending what people think. Ofc i kepted it as much of a stealth solo game play with only 1 team play aspect.

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/191614-ash-skill-tweak/

 

I love ash and been my main always but like you say its unfair that hes getting ignored.

[bl4ckhunter]

imo smokescreen should work like volt's speed and make all your teamatates in a radius invisible, it would make sense and it would make (remotely) possible group stealth runs.

[RealPandemonium]

No one forgot about ash, just no one really cares. He is a stealth character, much like loki but ash has a balance between damage abilities and utility. He is not nova or rhino, and no one wants him to be nova or rhino. He is fine where he is. A fun ninja frame. Not an op cc/damage god. Don't plead for a buff because de will just F*** it up like everything else.

Honestly this is probably correct, considering all the garbage feedback and suggestions thrown around on the forums.