Retune *all* The Frames! (11/19: Wildfire)

[Aquasurge]

Also this needs attention:

 

[Sasuda]

6 minutes ago, Aquasurge said:

Also this needs attention:

 

Not really, this video cuts out the huge buildup to get this. Have you actually used it/tried it? 
It's a warframe with an abillty that can help dealing with inifinitely scaling enemies. It's not going to be practical to use in most missions.

[Archwizard]

Still looking over Gara discussions and haven't come to any conclusions yet, but I got distracted by a few ideas for Volt.

If you think about it, his Electrical playstyle involves charging and discharging energy - his passive charges his damage (particularly Shock), Shock charges his shield and ultimate, Speed and the shield both supercharge weapons. His big problems right now are that (aside from more issues with flat damage, particularly the cap on his ultimate), in spite of his relatively small energy pool, he still has to juggle a lot of abilities together. So, some experimental thoughts:

• His passive generates a charge 2-5x faster, but still has the same cap.
• Shock now consumes Volt's shields instead of his energy (perhaps even restoring energy for each target struck?), and can be charged via hold-cast to increase its damage/range/jumps at an increased cost.
• Electric Shield, obviously, has the channeling cost of holding the shield reduced, and the per-meter cost of moving with the shield removed.
• Discharge no longer has a damage cap, but is also no longer affected by Power Duration. All instances of Electrical damage dealt to affected targets will cause the damage chain effect.

[Gurpgork]

On 11/21/2017 at 8:05 PM, Aquasurge said:

Also this needs attention:

 

I just tested this out, and it turns out that the video makes this whole thing look a lot more broken than it is.

The video doesn't really touch on it (heh, pun intended), but the damage added to Splinter Storm actually resets if Splinter Storm expires. It's also cumbersome and expensive to build up, and it's really weak against armored enemies if you don't stack it to utterly ludicrous heights, in which case you're pumping literally thousands of energy (assuming base efficiency) into one ability, and it should be strong when you do that. 

So yeah. It's undeniably devastating against unarmored enemies, but if and only if you're willing to sink an ungodly amount of energy into building up one ability.

I will say, however, that the documentation on Gara in-game is horrendous. There's certainly nothing in-game that even implies that this interaction is a thing. 

On 11/21/2017 at 8:15 PM, Sasuda said:

It's a warframe with an abillty that can help dealing with inifinitely scaling enemies.

So many people always say things like this in balance discussions, but I thought it was pretty explicit that we're not supposed to be able to deal with infinitely scaling enemies. That's the whole point. There's supposed to be a line in the sand where we simply cannot go any further and have to leave a mission. But then player power got wildly out of control, and now since we can effectively go forever in missions, a lot of people assume that means that we're supposed to. 

There is no way to balance for infinity that would not ultimately defeat the purpose of even having infinity in the first place. 

Edited November 23, 2017 by Gurpgork

[taiiat]

3 minutes ago, Gurpgork said:

it's really weak against armored enemies if you don't stack it to utterly ludicrous heights, in which case you're pumping literally thousands of energy (assuming base efficiency) into one ability, and it should be strong when you do that. 

So yeah. It's undeniably devastating against unarmored enemies, but if and only if you're willing to sink an ungodly amount of energy into building up one ability.

well, IPS would always be 'weak' against Armor under that school of thought, but stuff like say... Exalted Blade was already very powerful when it was still IPS only.
because in both cases, when you start with a big number, you still end up with one.

while it takes a while to do, running Splinter Storm forever is a very real possibility and it goes up pretty fast if you account for that Splinter Storm absorbs the Health from Vitrify AND the Damage of the Shattered Lash that broke it.
the second part of that is a bit nutso, since that means it alone can easily bring ~9,000 to the equation, per breaking.

[Gurpgork]

2 hours ago, taiiat said:

while it takes a while to do, running Splinter Storm forever is a very real possibility and it goes up pretty fast if you account for that Splinter Storm absorbs the Health from Vitrify AND the Damage of the Shattered Lash that broke it.

Yeah, I missed the part where casting Vitrify resets Splinter Storm. 

Which is... Terrifying. 

[tnccs215]

On 23/11/2017 at 3:01 PM, Gurpgork said:

There is no way to balance for infinity that would not ultimately defeat the purpose of even having infinity in the first place. 

Does it though? 

Don't take me wrong, I am not opposing you directly. But honestly, I think that infinite scaling - and Warframe's infinite scaling in particular - is inherently paradoxical. 

I mean, if we have infinite scaling, and infinitely scaling abilities, then there'll come a point in which scaling becomes pointless - because your abilities will always be able to match it. But simultaneously, if your abilities (and weapons) are not meant to endure past a certain threshold, than again there is no point for scaling to exist after that. 

Whatever the case might be, infinite scaling seems to be a logical conundrum, and the only true reason I see for it to exist is to give us the illusion  of an endless challenge. But since that comes at the expense of well defined tiers of difficulty - and therefore balancing levels - I don't believe the benefits outweight the consequences. 

[Justice_Ember]

On 20/3/2014 at 10:53 PM, Archwizard said:

- World on Fire replaced with “Wildfire”: Ember channels a large circle of cinders around herself. Every second, status-afflicted enemies within the cinders have a chance (affected by Power Strength) to refresh all status ailments on their person and spread all of their status afflictions to nearby enemies. Damaging status effects spread in this manner will share equal damage to the original status proc, and statuses afflicted by any means within this field will innately stack with (rather than overwriting) other instances of the same status.

Just a quick suggestion, I figured the best change to WoF would be an inverted Renewall, were energy is drained by the targets affected and those affected by Accelerant get their armor decreased.

Easy to understand mechanic  that has already been used by Oberon. 

[taiiat]

51 minutes ago, zzzNitro said:

Just a quick suggestion, I figured the best change to WoF would be an inverted Renewall, were energy is drained by the targets affected and those affected by Accelerant get their armor decreased.

oooh you weren't saying it but that made me think of it also scaling the weakening based on the number of Targets currently effected.
so covering a larger area to hit more Enemies would weaken many but not as much, whilst focusing on fewer would weaken them much more. on both Ability #2 and Ability #4!

such as Accelerant scales Damage Multiplier and Armor weakening based on number of targets affected - we'll go with a theme of three since World on Fire runs under that currently. higher than three spreads out the effects, lower than three increases it.

and then World on Fire or whatever you're going to call it, but instead of concurrent Enemies, the number of Enemies it has lit on fire or spread, Et Cetera. the more Enemies it has burned, the shorter the Duration and lower the Chance of Fire. similarly, less than three Enemies affected increases the Duration and Chance of Fire.

 

pair that with Fireball being like throwing in a bottle of an accelerant or oxidizer - strengthening existing flames while setting some of it's own. so if that dude(s) isn't burning enough for you, throw a molotov on it to increase the immolation.
and let the effect stack even, but with diminishing returns. so let's say hitting a burning Enemy with Fireball once increases the magnitude of the DoT that Enemy is taking by 1.25x, with a 5% smaller magnitude bonus for each boost after that.
which means, by the time you exhaust your bonus entirely, an Enemy is taking double DoT Damage.

that should work out to give active and focused increases, but due to the AoE limitations of Fireball, don't usurp other bonuses available that are not only stronger, but affect more Enemies more quickly.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

On 3/20/2014 at 9:53 PM, Archwizard said:

Limbo

OMG this.

I love these ideas. Limbo has been one of my mains since he came out, and while I loved his rework it didn't help make him a team player much more than before.

I've been suggesting for a while that ally rift interactions be changed to a buff that allows them to change rift plane at will when dodging, but I love the idea of making it part of his passive in affinity range even more!

I also hated that his Banish became a large cone, when I loved it so much as a single target power to pinpoint my target to assassinate like Heavy Gunners or Bombards, or at least small circular radius to better control the crowds I'm pulling in.

Every suggestion here would just make my day, and probably many of those that hate teaming with him. Fingers crossed that we get even half of these changes.

+1.

[Archwizard]

9 hours ago, zzzNitro said:

Just a quick suggestion, I figured the best change to WoF would be an inverted Renewall, were energy is drained by the targets affected and those affected by Accelerant get their armor decreased.

Easy to understand mechanic  that has already been used by Oberon. 

Two big problems with that:

One, WoF already has a limited number of targets it can affect per tick. At best such a change would make WoF more efficient, while still not adding any incentive to change... anything else.

Two, a major concern with the change to "Wildfire" is that WoF is a very passive ability; the goal was to give Ember a more powerful tool but also require more interaction, so she isn't relegated to walking through fields of low-level enemies, never touching any skill except Accelerant.

[Justice_Ember]

14 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Two big problems with that:

One, WoF already has a limited number of targets it can affect per tick. At best such a change would make WoF more efficient, while still not adding any incentive to change... anything else.

Two, a major concern with the change to "Wildfire" is that WoF is a very passive ability; the goal was to give Ember a more powerful tool but also require more interaction, so she isn't relegated to walking through fields of low-level enemies, never touching any skill except Accelerant.

Alright, I see your concern, let me point out how to solve it.

1.-  This can use a couple of solutions, a) Without enemy cap, Energy drain per target would make it a nightmare to mod for strength soft forcing synergy and b)With enemy cap, where it picks only targets affected by Ignite, again forcing the use of more abilities and/or fire weapons.

2.- I think the answer lies in the interaction it gets with Accelerant and Fire Blast, for instance 2+4=HEAT proc, HEAT proc+3=knock down or Panic and 2+3=minor Ragdoll. That way WoF retains it passiveness but the synergy is a lot more interesting.

[Justice_Ember]

On 27/11/2017 at 10:56 AM, taiiat said:

ooh you weren't saying it but that made me think of it also scaling the weakening based on the number of Targets currently effected.
so covering a larger area to hit more Enemies would weaken many but not as much, whilst focusing on fewer would weaken them much more. on both Ability #2 and Ability #4!

such as Accelerant scales Damage Multiplier and Armor weakening based on number of targets affected - we'll go with a theme of three since World on Fire runs under that currently. higher than three spreads out the effects, lower than three increases it.

and then World on Fire or whatever you're going to call it, but instead of concurrent Enemies, the number of Enemies it has lit on fire or spread, Et Cetera. the more Enemies it has burned, the shorter the Duration and lower the Chance of Fire. similarly, less than three Enemies affected increases the Duration and Chance of Fire.

 

pair that with Fireball being like throwing in a bottle of an accelerant or oxidizer - strengthening existing flames while setting some of it's own. so if that dude(s) isn't burning enough for you, throw a molotov on it to increase the immolation.
and let the effect stack even, but with diminishing returns. so let's say hitting a burning Enemy with Fireball once increases the magnitude of the DoT that Enemy is taking by 1.25x, with a 5% smaller magnitude bonus for each boost after that.
which means, by the time you exhaust your bonus entirely, an Enemy is taking double DoT Damage.

that should work out to give active and focused increases, but due to the AoE limitations of Fireball, don't usurp other bonuses available that are not only stronger, but affect more Enemies more quickly.

I aprrove this 100%

[DeltaPangaea]

I feel like improving Fireblast in some way is what Ember really needs the most. It's kind of... eh in most cases. Especially for the energy cost it has.

Also, Fireball's description mentions damage to 'any who enter the lingering flames'. Did Fireball actually leave a fire patch like Napalm shots at some time in the past? Should probably change that.

[taiiat]

7 minutes ago, DeltaPangaea said:

Also, Fireball's description mentions damage to 'any who enter the lingering flames'. Did Fireball actually leave a fire patch like Napalm shots at some time in the past? Should probably change that.

i believe it refers to that Fireball lights things nearby it on Fire as well.
but ofcourse it could get a ground patch anyways, because why not right.

[Justice_Ember]

17 hours ago, DeltaPangaea said:

I feel like improving Fireblast in some way is what Ember really needs the most. It's kind of... eh in most cases. Especially for the energy cost it has.

Also, Fireball's description mentions damage to 'any who enter the lingering flames'. Did Fireball actually leave a fire patch like Napalm shots at some time in the past? Should probably change that.

I would change Fire Blast to 2 and Accelerant to 3, and change the animation of Fireball to a stomp so that the fire travels through the floor, too many of Ember's skills are hand motions.

[tnccs215]

4 hours ago, zzzNitro said:

I would change Fire Blast to 2 and Accelerant to 3, and change the animation of Fireball to a stomp so that the fire travels through the floor, too many of Ember's skills are hand motions.

Mh... As cool as a fireball-ing stomp would look (basically imagining something like Nidus' 1), the proposed changes retain its nature as a projectile, which not only is very well on it self, but also inherently different properties from "surface traveling waves". Namely, not hitting anything below them, and being aimable on the Z-axis. 

I do agree there is an excessive use of hand movement. Why not make her 3 a stomp, instead? Seems more befitting, since it actually travels through the plain Ember is standing on. 

Edited November 29, 2017 by tnccs215

[Justice_Ember]

8 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

Mh... As cool as a fireball-ing stomp would look (basically imagining something like Nidus' 1), the proposed changes retain its nature as a projectile, which not only is very well on it self, but also inherently different properties from "surface traveling waves". Namely, not hitting anything below them, and being aimable on the Z-axis. 

I do agree there is an excessive use of hand movement. Why not make her 3 a stomp, instead? Seems more befitting, since it actually travels through the plain Ember is standing on. 

That's a sensible concern, and yes a stomp blast sounds cool. I do miss an eruption inspired skill tho.

[tnccs215]

19 minutes ago, zzzNitro said:

That's a sensible concern, and yes a stomp blast sounds cool. I do miss an eruption inspired skill tho.

Yeah, I understand, but no point worsening the current state in favor of an aesthetical preference :( best to find a middle ground. 

[Justice_Ember]

47 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

Yeah, I understand, but no point worsening the current state in favor of an aesthetical preference :( best to find a middle ground. 

Unless there's an skill rework, a stomp and/or eruption wouldn't fit any of the current skills.

[tnccs215]

On 29/11/2017 at 6:41 PM, zzzNitro said:

Unless there's an skill rework, a stomp and/or eruption wouldn't fit any of the current skills.

I would double down on my assertion that it would look pretty neat on Fire Blast - but you're the Ember, not me, and I haven't player her in a while, so I'll take your word for it. 

Edited November 30, 2017 by tnccs215

[Archwizard]

On 11/22/2017 at 5:40 PM, Archwizard said:

Still looking over Gara discussions and haven't come to any conclusions yet, but I got distracted by a few ideas for Volt.

If you think about it, his Electrical playstyle involves charging and discharging energy - his passive charges his damage (particularly Shock), Shock charges his shield and ultimate, Speed and the shield both supercharge weapons. His big problems right now are that (aside from more issues with flat damage, particularly the cap on his ultimate), in spite of his relatively small energy pool, he still has to juggle a lot of abilities together. 

In light of today's "buff", some new thoughts:

• Shock inherits any damage stored within Electric Shields it fires through.
• Speed cost and duration both doubled.
• Electric Shield no longer has a cost per meter traveled while being carried. Carrying the shield once again incurs an energy cost per-second, but also pauses the ability timer until set down or the shield is recast. Damage stored within a shield may be stacked.
• Discharge reworked: Volt releases an electrical wave that is affected by Range and Duration a la Molecular Prime. Enemies struck by the wave are continuously stunned and receive Electric damage over a period affected by ability rank ONLY; no longer has a damage cap. Either:
  • Whenever a target is struck by Shock, they discharge a burst of damage to nearby enemies for a percentage of their maximum health and shields. OR
  • All instances of Electric damage received by affected targets will be discharged to nearby enemies.
• Tentative: These enemy discharges will contribute damage to Electric Shields in range.

It dawned on me that not only would pausing the ability timer while carrying Electric Shield be a simple QoL fix to a major complaint about the ability, but it also provides him with the perfect opportunity to create and carry a battery at all times.

[taiiat]

On 12/1/2017 at 6:46 AM, Archwizard said:

• Shock inherits any damage stored within Electric Shields it fires through.
• Electric Shield no longer has a cost per meter traveled while being carried. Carrying the shield once again incurs an energy cost per-second, but also pauses the ability timer until set down or the shield is recast. Damage stored within a shield may be stacked.

 

• Discharge reworked: Volt releases an electrical wave that is affected by Range and Duration a la Molecular Prime. Enemies struck by the wave are continuously stunned and receive Electric damage over a period affected by ability rank ONLY; no longer has a damage cap. Either:
  • Whenever a target is struck by Shock, they discharge a burst of damage to nearby enemies for a percentage of their maximum health and shields. OR
  • All instances of Electric damage received by affected targets will be discharged to nearby enemies.
• Tentative: These enemy discharges will contribute damage to Electric Shields in range.

say, i really like that.

 

for Discharge, what i think it's really missing is part of what it's themed after being, which is something a bit far off but similar to Saryns' wheelhouse.
ala maybe the core of it should be Enemies are selected (all of them maybe but i'd like to think selecting Heavies and such would make it work cooler - perhaps scale the power of the Ability Effects based on the total Health of the Enemy in some way so that Heavies are stronger totems than Trash Units), and used as Telsa Coil sort of totems (pmuch like it is now)... that reflect Electrical Damage and Status Effects between them.

and then some mixure of stuff such as:

• Shock has a reduced Cost while Discharge is active, Shock bounces more / resets bounces / something like that when a bolt or bounce Arc hits a Discharge Totem
• Enemies within N Meters of a Totem that takes an Electric Status Effect mirror the Status Effect on them at partial or full strength
  • (maybe nearby Totems mirror at full strength, unaffected Enemies at partial strength?)
• Totems fire longer range Lightning Arcs out to Enemies within Line of sight with both Range and Strength of this being increased by multiple Totems being within N Meters of each other (can anyone say Tessssssssla Trooper?!?!? or Prism Tower, same idea)
  • bonus points if these Totems deal extra Damage if they fire through Electric Shield (and if you mix that with that Shield battery idea?)
  • Totems also gain increased Duration for being near other Totems, while Shock instead of resetting Duration replenishes a portion of it (scaled by Mods), and can increase the Duration over the normal limit (like how Amesha can spam bubble to make it have a longer than listed Duration)
• Speed lets Volt carry Discharge Arcs to new Enemies to make new Totems from Enemies that were not in the vicinity when Cast

the list can go on. which what we end up with is like those old suggestions of 'press 4 to spam your other Abilities more'. but.... in a much cooler way that has deep, involved mechanics that get more out of your Energy by dealing more Damage / lasting longer / affecting more things.
while still adding its own mechanics and features to Volt, rather than being just a glorified mode toggle (*cough* Equinox *cough*).

Edited December 2, 2017 by taiiat

[DeltaPangaea]

Some idle musing.

Perhaps make Discharge into an actual discharging ability?

Hitting things with Shock charges Volt's passive (Which is thus changed from his current 'run around' one) or his ultimate itself. The more it's charged, the more damage Discharge does when it's unleashed, and the more range it has.

You could even tie more of his abilities into it. Over a certain amount of Charge, Electric Shields are deployed pre-charged, Speed might do electric damage to people around him while it's active, Shock itself does more damage...

So you've got the choice to hang onto your charge for the benefits, or use it for a big, superdamaging CC-ing nuke. Basically a similar concept to Inaros and his Scarab Swarm.

[Azamagon]

8 hours ago, Archwizard said:

In light of today's "buff", some new thoughts:

1. Shock inherits any damage stored within Electric Shields it fires through.
2. Speed cost and duration both doubled.
3. Electric Shield no longer has a cost per meter traveled while being carried. Carrying the shield once again incurs an energy cost per-second, but also pauses the ability timer until set down or the shield is recast. Damage stored within a shield may be stacked.
4. Discharge reworked: Volt releases an electrical wave that is affected by Range and Duration a la Molecular Prime. Enemies struck by the wave are continuously stunned and receive Electric damage over a period affected by ability rank ONLY; no longer has a damage cap. Either:
   • Whenever a target is struck by Shock, they discharge a burst of damage to nearby enemies for a percentage of their maximum health and shields. OR
   • All instances of Electric damage received by affected targets will be discharged to nearby enemies.
5. Tentative: These enemy discharges will contribute damage to Electric Shields in range.

It dawned on me that not only would pausing the ability timer while carrying Electric Shield be a simple QoL fix to a major complaint about the ability, but it also provides him with the perfect opportunity to create and carry a battery at all times.

1. So, you mean whatever damage enemies do to an E-shield is now stored inside the E-shield, then casting Shock through a E-shield will buff Shock's damage with that stored damage? That's really an interesting way to make Shock scale a bit better. I like it. This will be dealt purely as Electric damage though, no?
2. Yes please! This also makes it better for those rare players that want to opt out of it (since they only need to backflip half as often).
3. YES. DO THIS, NOW! MUCH better way to change it like this. I'd just like ONE more change to it: No restriction to secondary/melee only, please? It's not carried on the left arm anyway.
   Further; The augment, please add 1/2/3/4 max shields placeable (1 extra per rank, unchangeable by mods). Why? Since allies can pick them up, having a higher shield-placement cap means they can mess with your other shields less easily, even in unintentional moments. More shields allows them to carry one each, while also allowing some shields to remain to defend a stationary target.
4. Only got one question; How long would you suggest this stunning effect to last? Because, while it's cool to have it aid Shock's damage, Discharge is very nifty right now as a CC-tool (even if it only lasts 5-ish seconds, I like it mostly for its panic CC).
   As for the damage-scaling, either one is fine. One is simpler (which is good for a starter-frame), albeit really powerful. The other one has more build-options, and fits with Shock's scaling more organically, but might be a bit complex to add on a starter-frame (Although, Mag is not ultra-simple either so... who cares, heh?)? *shrug* Either way sounds good though.
5. I see why you say tentative, because couldn't this be a bit too powerful, and too spammable? After all, it would create this loop:
   a) Cast Electric Shield and pick it up.
   b) Fuel Electric Shield by letting enemies fire at it
   c) Discharge a group of enemies and stand among them
   d) Cast Shock -> Damage gets boosted by Electric Shield's damage -> Shock zaps enemies who are Discharged -> Discharge damage now (re)fuel's Electric Shield's storage. Continue to cast this empowered Shock until they all die.
   e) Repeat from point c
   
   While I understand you are emphasizing his "alternative to gunplay", this is maybe just a tad too potent? I mean we already have Octavia and Nidus, so maybe I shouldn't be too concerned, heh. Also, the E-shield can run out due to energy-issues, so that holds it somewhat in check too.

Regardless, I really like what you suggested here overall. I'd be down for this no doubt. Very organic and interactive.