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

[Azamagon]

9 hours ago, ChronoEclipse said:

I had another thought regarding the energy system: Have the regen rate scale inversely with the amount of missing energy. This encourages frequent use (though not spamming) of lesser powers, while allowing you to dig yourself in a hole if you want.

 

Volt:

Discharge should be given one simple buff: For the duration of Discharge, any enemy Volt touches or melees will be added to Discharge or have their damage cap progress reset.
This synergizes with Speed since he gets benefits from running around, and it makes Discharge's duration relevant against unarmored targets.

Ember:

Fireball should gain Fire Blast's ring of fire mechanic. Now it's not only better than standard Heat damage, but it also gives her easy/fluid/cheap chokepoint control.

Fire Blast should lose the ring of fire. Possible name change to Ignition?
Any enemy within 3/5/7/9 meters of Ember will be ragdolled away. When these ragdolls land, they will deal 10/15/20/25% (scaling with Strength) of their maximum HP in Heat damage in a 2/4/6/8 meter radius.
Ember now has a distinctive and powerful scaling damage ability (hilarious levels of power when combined with Accelerant), with a bit of inconsistency to balance it out.

World on Fire now loses 50% (unmoddable) of its damage over 30 seconds (unmoddable); in return, it grants Ember a power strength buff that scales up to 100% (moddable) over 30 seconds (unmoddable).
This effectively doubles your power strength and helps to keep all of her powers relevant at higher levels.

Giving Fireball the Fire Blast's ring (or imo, full area) sounds perfect to me.

"Ignition" damage sounds far too strong imo. It would easily become the new "old Shield Polarize".  Even without any added power strength, consider your proposed changes to WoF, add Acceleration to it, and it would ALREADY go to instakill levels. Now factor in power strength, which would tripledip: Max hp scaling for Ignition, Accelerant scaling and WoF-buff scaling. It's -far- too much.
Just having flat (but high) damage is fine by me. It could even get an energycost drop if needed.
If I'd give Fire Blast/Ignition some scaling, I'd make it deal a DoT which burns away X% of an enemy's CURRENT health every second (with "current health" calculation also being updated on each tick, so it can never kill enemies on its own). This could actually also be a more fitting balance change for WoF though, so WoF scales very well, but never kills by itself either (which would be a fair trade-off considering its ease of use). Then Fireball and Fire Blast/Ignition is more likely to become the "finishing" moves in her kit.

WoF idea is interesting to help the other abilities, but possibly unnecessary (especially so if WoF got the current-health damage thing). The fact that it also promotes "fire and forget" even more makes me wanna shy away from the suggestion further. Interesting idea nontheless.

[taiiat]

12 hours ago, ChronoEclipse said:

I had another thought regarding the energy system: Have the regen rate scale inversely with the amount of missing energy. This encourages frequent use (though not spamming) of lesser powers, while allowing you to dig yourself in a hole if you want.

 

Ember:

Fireball should gain Fire Blast's ring of fire mechanic. Now it's not only better than standard Heat damage, but it also gives her easy/fluid/cheap chokepoint control.

Fire Blast should lose the ring of fire. Possible name change to Ignition?
Any enemy within 3/5/7/9 meters of Ember will be ragdolled away. When these ragdolls land, they will deal 10/15/20/25% (scaling with Strength) of their maximum HP in Heat damage in a 2/4/6/8 meter radius.
Ember now has a distinctive and powerful scaling damage ability (hilarious levels of power when combined with Accelerant), with a bit of inconsistency to balance it out.

World on Fire now loses 50% (unmoddable) of its damage over 30 seconds (unmoddable); in return, it grants Ember a power strength buff that scales up to 100% (moddable) over 30 seconds (unmoddable).
This effectively doubles your power strength and helps to keep all of her powers relevant at higher levels.

hm. presuming with Efficiency and Energy availability theoretically being dealt with, then that certainly sounds interesting. getting Energy to help cast an Ability fairly often, but building up a large 'battery' for long stents of spamming being a long/slow process.

 

sounds good to give that to Fireball tbh. never thought of that.

functionality sounds good, but for obvious reasons the Percentage is much too high if you want it to be total Health.
easier to not get into trouble if it was like, 5% of current Health or something of the sort. which at default is already 50% of the current Health of the Enemy, because Accelerant will multiply the Damage presumably! where as 25% of total Health means Ember could AoE script Kill Enemies with just an Intensify!

wouldn't... -50% Damage but +100% Power Strength mean +50% same total World on Fire Damage?
unless the Power Strength doesn't apply to World on Fire ofcourse.

Edited September 29, 2016 by taiiat
i'm good at this i promise.

[Azamagon]

1 minute ago, taiiat said:

wouldn't... -50% Damage but +100% Power Strength mean +50% total World on Fire Damage?

No, it would make WoF untouched:
-50% damage = divide by 2
+100% pow. str (or damage) = multiply by 2

They would just cancel each other out.

Unless, as you said, it doesn't even apply to WoF (which is likely, considering it is activated BEFORE the strength buff is built up). Also, he suggested that the strength bonus is modifiable, so if WoF would be affected by the strength, you could even improve its damage over time a bit.

[taiiat]

16 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

No, it would make WoF untouched

right, that's correct. reading too quickly(20/20 hindsight). same point still stands though.

i have a feeling i know what the intent is, with some things that have been discussed in the past.

Edited September 29, 2016 by taiiat

[Aquasurge]

3 hours ago, Azamagon said:

WoF idea is interesting to help the other abilities, but possibly unnecessary (especially so if WoF got the current-health damage thing). The fact that it also promotes "fire and forget" even more makes me wanna shy away from the suggestion further. Interesting idea nontheless.

unless you could some how interact with the flames and direct it to a certain area of the circle......

[--Q--uaint]

16 hours ago, Azamagon said:

"Ignition" damage sounds far too strong imo. It would easily become the new "old Shield Polarize".  Even without any added power strength, consider your proposed changes to WoF, add Acceleration to it, and it would ALREADY go to instakill levels. Now factor in power strength, which would tripledip: Max hp scaling for Ignition, Accelerant scaling and WoF-buff scaling. It's -far- too much.
Just having flat (but high) damage is fine by me. It could even get an energycost drop if needed.

Yes, but Heat damage isn't especially great and this doesn't account for armor. Not only that, but the damage on this will be pretty irregular since you will need to ragdoll enemies in a small range around yourself... who then deal damage to the people they land near.

It's far from being "old Shield Polarize", since you have to deal with the randomness and your actual killpower is a pretty small AoE.

The damage is very high, but that's needed to account for armor and randomness. That said, I suppose I could live with it being flat damage.

14 hours ago, taiiat said:

easier to not get into trouble if it was like, 5% of current Health or something of the sort.

5% of current health... let's math this out a bit.
Let's say Ember has 200% power strength, which is decently achievable.
This bumps the % up to 10%.
Accelerant has a base multiplier of 2.5x. With 200% strength, that's a 5x multiplier.
50% of current health is... actually pretty reasonable. Though a good Rhino Roar could still kick that damage up to 100%.

Let's say Ember really maximized, now... 250% strength and Energy Conversion. (sure, 299% is technically achievable, but it wrecks everything)
We now have a baseline of 12.5%, with possibility of 15%. If the power dealing this damage is World on Fire, that's basically guaranteed.
Accelerant is now reaching a multiplier of either 6.25 or 7.5x.
This gives an Accelerant-boosted % between 78 and 112.5.

I think the moral of the story here is that Accelerant is absurdly strong.

16 hours ago, Azamagon said:

This could actually also be a more fitting balance change for WoF though, so WoF scales very well, but never kills by itself either (which would be a fair trade-off considering its ease of use). Then Fireball and Fire Blast/Ignition is more likely to become the "finishing" moves in her kit.

...Yes, I like this idea. Potentially even have it scale over time from flat damage to %hp damage, so it retains its nuking-surge property?

13 hours ago, taiiat said:

unless the Power Strength doesn't apply to World on Fire ofcourse.

All powers' power strength is snapshotted; any changes to your power strength do not affect any abilities that are active.

This is why Energy Conversion and being Heat procced are actually pretty useful for Ember, since she only needs to meet the condition once to get that snapshotted power strength for WoF for the rest of the mission.

13 hours ago, Aquasurge said:

unless you could some how interact with the flames and direct it to a certain area of the circle......

That gives me an amusing idea: Make WoF prioritize enemies in fire-rings, and have all Heat damage dealt inside a fire-ring buff its DoT by... say 10% of the value.

Hit an enemy with Fireball, then shoot them with your Heat-augmented Tigris boosted by Accelerant... and sit back while your little ring of fire melts anyone who comes your way.

Perhaps instead that should be an augment. Or even just let Fire Blast focus on that functionality and have the CC/burst damage be an afterthought, almost.

 

With all of that in mind, I have a proposal for WoF: A "fueling" mechanic.
As it stands, WoF is uninteractive and not super great at high levels. This seeks to change both.

In its default state, WoF would deal 75-25% of the base damage it does now, and also deal 10% of the target's current HP in Heat damage.

It would start at 100% effectiveness, with the effectiveness scaling between 25 and 150% based on conditions.
WoF would lose 5% of its effectiveness every second.
10% effectiveness would be regained for every kill made within WoF's range by a source that isn't WoF, and all energy spent on other powers would give effectiveness 1-to-1.

This leaves Ember with a bit of a balancing act; WoF won't do all her killing for her unless she spams Accelerant like nobody's business... and she's gonna have to get that energy somewhere.

[taiiat]

3 hours ago, ChronoEclipse said:

I think the moral of the story here is that Accelerant is absurdly strong.

All Energy Drain powers' power strength is snapshotted

 

With all of that in mind, I have a proposal for WoF: A "fueling" mechanic.
As it stands, WoF is uninteractive and not super great at high levels. This seeks to change both.

In its default state, WoF would deal 75-25% of the base damage it does now, and also deal 10% of the target's current HP in Heat damage.

It would start at 100% effectiveness, with the effectiveness scaling between 25 and 150% based on conditions.
WoF would lose 5% of its effectiveness every second.
10% effectiveness would be regained for every kill made within WoF's range by a source that isn't WoF, and all energy spent on other powers would give effectiveness 1-to-1.

Accelerant is powerful sure, but it exists anyways and it's not a bad Ability so anything new must keep Accelerant in context.
whatever it is should be affected by it ofcourse, because if it doesn't then Accelerant doesn't have any direct relations to it.

idunno, perhaps a Damage Value that is within bounds, but Enemies lit on Fire within a short period after being affected by Fire Blast take 1.75x the Fire DoT Damage and 2x the Fire DoT Duration or something? *shrugs*
you'd be able to clear an area and use Fireball (or Weapons technically) to hit some Heavies or something.
and then we don't need to use infinitesimally small values to keep Ember from Script Killing all Enemies.

 

yeah yeah, i know. for something new i can't just assume it would work the same as things do now.

 

that's quite a large increase of effectiveness at default functionality, since it naturally deals Percentage Damage.
this uh, gives Players the most benefit at low-mid Levels where Killing a few Enemies is always super easy though, and less so as Levels increase - where i suspect the feature is supposed to be helping the Player out in the first place.
what does Energy spent on Abilities do exactly? are you saying that casting Fireball would increase the strength of World on Fire, just by casting it? and that if i had less Efficiency that it would actually do this to a greater degree? sounds neat in theory i suppose but casting Accelerant directly helps World on Fire so being rewarded for boosting World on Fire may not be what you're aiming for - pretty sure you're trying to reward Players for using Abilities other than those two(which could be easier done by measuring casts of those other Abilities rather than Energy spent on any Abilities, wouldn't it?)

Edited September 30, 2016 by taiiat

[--Q--uaint]

24 minutes ago, taiiat said:

this uh, gives Players the most benefit at low-mid Levels where Killing a few Enemies is always super easy though, and less so as Levels increase - where i suspect the feature is supposed to be helping the Player out in the first place.

....what?

It does less flat damage than before, but has a scaling capability that allows it to keep killing as long as you keep killing. How is that not helping at higher levels? If you're gonna cite armor, I'm just gonna give up :P

27 minutes ago, taiiat said:

sounds neat in theory i suppose but casting Accelerant directly helps World on Fire so being rewarded for boosting World on Fire may not be what you're aiming for - pretty sure you're trying to reward Players for using Abilities other than those two(which could be easier done by measuring casts of those other Abilities rather than Energy spent on any Abilities, wouldn't it?)

Not really. The idea is to give you the ability to boost your WoF strength back up without killing, at the cost of effective duration by eating away at your energy pool.

[taiiat]

13 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

How is that not helping at higher levels?

Not really. The idea is to give you the ability to boost your WoF strength back up without killing, at the cost of effective duration by eating away at your energy pool.

in that as Levels go up, Killing Enemies is less likely to happen, so less likely to have that to restore some capability of World on Fire.
so basically at lower Levels World on Fire would just always have a 50% bonus to nuke those Enemies harder, but at higher Levels is liable to end up negative for a solid amount of the usage time.

very well. it does however seem like it overincentivizes continuing use of Accelerant, and that Fireball should be weighted higher and Fire Blast most likely as well. elsewise Embers will just cast Accelerant more, which they're already doing to Kill higher Level Enemies anyways.

[--Q--uaint]

1 minute ago, taiiat said:

in that as Levels go up, Killing Enemies is less likely to happen, so less likely to have that to restore some capability of World on Fire.

If you're not killing, you're not really progressing anyway. I'm okay with that.

2 minutes ago, taiiat said:

so basically at lower Levels World on Fire would just always have a 50% bonus to nuke those Enemies harder,

Not really, 'cause WoF will be stealing their kills. They have to get the kill before WoF does to keep WoF's strength up to keep killing. It's a vicious cycle, and not one they'd likely be able to keep up at low levels.

This substantially lowers the level where you actually have to pay attention to enemies as you run through the Exterminate.

4 minutes ago, taiiat said:

at higher Levels is liable to end up negative for a solid amount of the usage time.

See my point about the first quote. Also, negative bonus will almost certainly allow Accelerant to put it in a place where it weakens enemies enough that you can kill them easily, at least if you're building good strength.

It actually makes WoF a skill that uses damage to debuff, which amuses me.

7 minutes ago, taiiat said:

it does however seem like it overincentivizes continuing use of Accelerant, and that Fireball should be weighted higher and Fire Blast most likely as well. elsewise Embers will just cast Accelerant more, which they're already doing to Kill higher Level Enemies anyways.

Good point. Perhaps make Fireball/Blast give double or triple the energy spent?

[taiiat]

30 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

Not really, 'cause WoF will be stealing their kills.

it could, but it Kills a few Enemies per second or so, which with the usual large groups you could definitely Kill some of those Enemies before it does. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Cytobel]

On Thursday, September 29, 2016 at 3:09 AM, ChronoEclipse said:

*snip*

Volt:

Discharge should be given one simple buff: For the duration of Discharge, any enemy Volt touches or melees will be added to Discharge or have their damage cap progress reset.
This synergizes with Speed since he gets benefits from running around, and it makes Discharge's duration relevant against unarmored targets.

*snip*

Respectfully, this idea is terrible.  I main Volt, and I would abuse this to DEATH.  It would turn Range into a required dumpstat.  Tesla arcs scale with range, you see, so I would run Strength, Efficiency, and Duration, relying on a Mios or an Atterax with Primed Reach...  it would get SO ugly, so fast...  Negative Range would be the only build.

I address a health cap reset below.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Instead I recommend the following for him:

1.  Shock needs viable interactions if it's to be a "keystone skill".  Make it trigger Shocking Speed if cast with Speed active, as this wouldn't make SS any less an augment AND it would give Shock an interaction with Speed.  Let a Shock-charged Electric Shield trigger electric procs, stunning targets for a moment.  When I Shock something affected by Discharge, have it reset the damage cap.

There, Shock would actually be a keystone and the interaction between it and Discharge would be real.

2.  Speed needs a base duration of 15 seconds to par back reliance on Duration.  It's a small change that would help greatly (mostly it would let me do something else other than hit the same button every 8-12 seconds recasting Speed).

3.  Electric Shield//Shock interaction is a big point.

Riot Shield costs far too much for what it does, so the energy cost could be slashed.  It's not as if the duration stops ticking down when you carry the shield.  The speed penalty is just too punitive, and the main reason I never use this turd.  It takes away most of the benefit of using the shield in the first place by making you take more effective fire from angles you aren't covering.

While this ability is quite nice in theory, I wind up just recasting ES whenever I stop moving.  It's safer and more economical right now, which is why I recommend these changes.

4.  Discharge needs to be an air cast again.  After all, the ability LIFTS YOU INTO THE FREAKING AIR TO TRIGGER.

I have other issues with Discharge (and electricity as a damage type), but this one thing would help a very great deal.  I still don't follow why this needed to be removed in the first place ("because coding" is a bs reason, because coding can be altered, and the visual theme doesn't fit what's there either*).

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Someone mentioned switching Trinity's Well of Life and Evergy Vampire mechanics around, and I rather like the idea.  After all, it's not Life Vampire and Well of Energy, is it?  The mechanics seem a bit backwards to me now that it's been mentioned.

*P.S.,  This is a gripe for any lightly armored 'Frame that needs to cast a skill which leaves it in the air above cover, motionless, for a full second, trapped in animation.  Simple QoL, but it makes all the difference.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Cytobel

[Archwizard]

2 hours ago, Cytobel said:

When I Shock something affected by Discharge, have it reset the damage cap.

There, Shock would actually be a keystone and the interaction between it and Discharge would be real.

I'd been considering that too when I read Chrono's suggestion.

That... actually kinda works. However, I've heard some complaints about the effect instantly burning out against some higher-level targets due to the health threshold not accounting for armor or some other odd reason; extending won't help much without opportunity.

2 hours ago, Cytobel said:

Someone mentioned switching Trinity's Well of Life and Evergy Vampire mechanics around, and I rather like the idea.  After all, it's not Life Vampire and Well of Energy, is it?  The mechanics seem a bit backwards to me now that it's been mentioned.

Hmm. Y'know, my initial reaction to this was that it would simply ruin Energy Vampire because the designated 4-spammer in a lootcave could still spam Radial Javelin or whatever, and in fact be the only person getting energy at all if it instant-killed targets, thereby doing nothing to discourage the issue.

... Except, I realized, this means the Trinity wouldn't be getting that energy back either, so she couldn't keep EVing if she doesn't get some hits in. Trinity would no longer have an automatic feedback loop for infinite energy, just the potential for energy.

However, that penalizes the player just as much in non-farm groups, since that means kill-stealing would become a legitimate issue in public matches; Trinity taps EV because she's getting low on energy, an Ember comes by with World on Fire and nullifies it for both of them, "Too bad!"
Maybe she would have the in-built defense of casting Well of Life first to use its health multiplier to prevent kill-stealing, but in such a case where the health multiplier would remain relevant, it could lead to an upheaval of players using Well of Life to troll by making some enemies nigh impossible to kill.

That being said, I'm starting to grow a little fond of the idea of a Trinity marking a Well of Life that automatically and continuously feeds its health to nearby players while shifting their status effects taken onto itself...

Edited October 1, 2016 by Archwizard

[Xaero]

13 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

Hmm. Y'know, my initial reaction to this was that it would simply ruin Energy Vampire because the designated 4-spammer in a lootcave could still spam Radial Javelin or whatever, and in fact be the only person getting energy at all if it instant-killed targets, thereby doing nothing to discourage the issue.

... Except, I realized, this means the Trinity wouldn't be getting that energy back either, so she couldn't keep EVing if she doesn't get some hits in. Trinity would no longer have an automatic feedback loop for infinite energy, just the potential for energy.

However, that penalizes the player just as much in non-farm groups, since that means kill-stealing would become a legitimate issue in public matches; Trinity taps EV because she's getting low on energy, an Ember comes by with World on Fire and nullifies it for both of them, "Too bad!"
Maybe she would have the in-built defense of casting Well of Life first to use its health multiplier to prevent kill-stealing, but in such a case where the health multiplier would remain relevant, it could lead to an upheaval of players using Well of Life to troll by making some enemies nigh impossible to kill.

That being said, I'm starting to grow a little fond of the idea of a Trinity marking a Well of Life that automatically and continuously feeds its health to nearby players while shifting their status effects taken onto itself...

My suggestion about EV - make enemies affected by it drop energy orbs instead of just giving energy to players. This would eliminate the issue of AFK spamming.

[--Q--uaint]

3 hours ago, Cytobel said:

Respectfully, this idea is terrible.  I main Volt, and I would abuse this to DEATH.  It would turn Range into a required dumpstat.  Tesla arcs scale with range, you see,

The damage dealt by arcing between mobs shouldn't contribute towards reaching the damage cap. This antisynergy is a problem to be fixed directly.

Unless I'm missing something else. If so, do tell.

3 hours ago, Cytobel said:

I would run Strength, Efficiency, and Duration, relying on a Mios or an Atterax with Primed Reach...  it would get SO ugly, so fast

....a potent alternative to gunplay? ;3

3 hours ago, Cytobel said:

Make it trigger Shocking Speed if cast with Speed active, as this wouldn't make SS any less an augment AND it would give Shock an interaction with Speed.

How would that work?

I'm seeing it just working as "If Speed is active when Shock is cast, enemies within 5(?) meters of Volt would be hit with Shock in addition to the chosen target."

Another amusing alternative interaction would be teleportation. Lightning powers are frequently grouped with teleporting, and it's Volt's only targeted skill, so...

3 hours ago, Cytobel said:

Electric Shield//Shock interaction is a big point.

Why not also have an interaction between Shield and Speed?

I'm thinking something like applying Speed's boost to Maneuvers you do through Shield while Speed is active, so you could actually have a reason to use Speed with Bulletjumps.
This would allow you to maintain sane parkour velocities (though it would be awfully fun if Speed just worked with parkour out of the box...) while giving an amusing mobility interaction.

3 hours ago, Cytobel said:

Discharge needs to be an air cast again. ...  I still don't follow why this needed to be removed in the first place

I definitely agree, though casting from behind Electric Shield is now safe from Bombards so it's not as big a deal as it used to be.

I think it's because the ability works from the nav mesh on the level, so if you aren't on the nav mesh, the ability wouldn't know where to spread. That said, it should work fine by just using the point you'd return to if you fell in a pit.

41 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

I've heard some complaints about the effect instantly burning out against some higher-level targets due to the health threshold not accounting for armor or some other odd reason; extending won't help much without opportunity.

It's actually the opposite, kinda. Grouped enemies will escape faster since they get to hurt each other towards the damage cap and freedom.

Heavily armored targets are likely to be CC'd for the full duration of the skill since only damage that's actually dealt gets applied to the cap.

To see these effects in action, compare the CC duration on high level Chargers and Heavy Gunners in both singles and groups.

46 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

However, that penalizes the player just as much in non-farm groups, since that means kill-stealing would become a legitimate issue in public matches; Trinity taps EV because she's getting low on energy, an Ember comes by with World on Fire and nullifies it for both of them, "Too bad!"

This is why I suggested that Trin should always be refunded the energy she spent in my various rework ideas.

48 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

Maybe she would have the in-built defense of casting Well of Life first to use its health multiplier to prevent kill-stealing

That... doesn't work nearly as well as one might think it should. There's a significant delay between cast-time and when the skill takes effect, even without latency. If your squadmates are running around killing too much, WoL probably won't do much aside from waste more energy.

50 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

in such a case where the health multiplier would remain relevant, it could lead to an upheaval of players using Well of Life to troll by making some enemies nigh impossible to kill

This doesn't really happen, in my experience. If the enemies are tough enough for it to make a real difference, you're almost certainly in a premade group.

That said, somebody did pop WoL on Hek in the last stage of LoR once. It was amusing... but quickly over due to his power resistance.

54 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

That being said, I'm starting to grow a little fond of the idea of a Trinity marking a Well of Life that automatically and continuously feeds its health to nearby players while shifting their status effects taken onto itself...

I still like my idea of WoL being Trin's source of DR for allies.

[Cytobel]

48 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

The damage dealt by arcing between mobs shouldn't contribute towards reaching the damage cap. This antisynergy is a problem to be fixed directly.

Unless I'm missing something else. If so, do tell.

....a potent alternative to gunplay? ;3

How would that work?

I'm seeing it just working as "If Speed is active when Shock is cast, enemies within 5(?) meters of Volt would be hit with Shock in addition to the chosen target."

Another amusing alternative interaction would be teleportation. Lightning powers are frequently grouped with teleporting, and it's Volt's only targeted skill, so...

*snip*

Don't you toy with my heart with beautiful words like "potent alternative to gunplay".  I've had enough of such seductive language from floozies before.....

As to the Shock + Speed thing, make it breifly activate Shocking Speed.  Hell, the whole ability is breif enough that it'd be fine to activate SS for the rest of the duration (or until Speed recast, which WOULD turn it back off).

Somewhere in the Volt Rework Megathread (no phone, you DON'T get to change that to Megatron, you coy little Decepticon *@##$) there is the idea for Static Flicker, a teleport with radial knockback/knockdown and electric proc at both ends of the teleport.  There was even a writeup for its augment mod, called Static Twin (short duration clone which you become if killed at the other end of the teleport before it's duration ends).  I did this, and would make it a reality if king for a day.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Cytobel

[--Q--uaint]

13 minutes ago, Cytobel said:

Don't you toy with my heart with beautiful words like "potent alternative to gunplay".  I've had enough of such seductive language from floozies before.....

Shadow Debt melee and high strength Speed already kinda make it a thing, sooooo....

14 minutes ago, Cytobel said:

As to the Shock + Speed thing, make it breifly activate Shocking Speed.  Hell, the whole ability is breif enough that it'd be fine to activate SS for the rest of the duration (or until Speed recast, which WOULD turn it back off).

IMO the augment is and should stay unique when compared to the base kit. To that end, I think it should just make a small instant AoE around Volt, with probably more range and damage than Shocking Speed since you're spending more energy to get it.

Volt Rework: Megatron... Sounds like a good thread name...

[Cytobel]

Speed Volt's been a thing since the Corrupted mods first came out (fun fact:  the Flux Rifle was a high DPS end-game-tier weapon at the time).  Focus lenses made him basically viable, and Shadow Debt made him lethal.

I still refuse to build a Speed Volt.  It feels like the low-hanging fruit, and it relies too heavily on non-Volt (lens, weapon mods, arcanes) for me to feel like it IS a VOLT build.  Personal hang-up there, I know.

As to Shocking Speed, it feels too much like what Speed always should've been.  I've been of the opinion since it was released that Speed barely has a purpose without it.  Again, opinions, but still it's what I feel.  I am NOT against some form of radial pulse teleport thing as an interaction, but still....

I've also got a long-standing issue with Electric Shield:  electricity just doesn't DO THAT.  If I can form shields from electric fields that are solid enough to stop bullets, then I can form similar fields inside someone else.  Form a shield halfway inside a charging Grineer, watch him come apart like he was unzipped....  If you can make electricity solid, NOTHING should be resistant to your lightning.  That sort of logic niggles at the back of my mind in the wee hours.

Also, Loki's unloved Switch Teleport.  What if it had a radial Radiation pulse at both ends?  I'd WANT to use that skill then, Parkour 2.0 be damned.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Cytobel

[--Q--uaint]

48 minutes ago, Cytobel said:

I still refuse to build a Speed Volt.  It feels like the low-hanging fruit, and it relies too heavily on non-Volt (lens, weapon mods, arcanes) for me to feel like it IS a VOLT build.  Personal hang-up there, I know.

I have 7 forma in Volt, and all because of Speed. Not because of melee dps, but because Speed makes you fast and I like being fast.

That said, you could make a pretty good Speed DPS build with just Volt and a melee, without using Focus or arcanes.

51 minutes ago, Cytobel said:

As to Shocking Speed, it feels too much like what Speed always should've been.

I can't disagree with that.

52 minutes ago, Cytobel said:

I've been of the opinion since it was released that Speed barely has a purpose without it

I disagree entirely.

53 minutes ago, Cytobel said:

I've also got a long-standing issue with Electric Shield:  electricity just doesn't DO THAT.

Well, yes. This is true. But that's kind of a silly hill to die on IMO since there's no logic in any of the rest of the game...

55 minutes ago, Cytobel said:

If I can form shields from electric fields that are solid enough to stop bullets, then I can form similar fields inside someone else.  Form a shield halfway inside a charging Grineer, watch him come apart like he was unzipped....  If you can make electricity solid, NOTHING should be resistant to your lightning.

You can, and it doesn't affect the charging Grineer at all unless you pick it up. :P

That said, Nezha and Excalibur regularly impale Grineer without killing them.

57 minutes ago, Cytobel said:

Also, Loki's unloved Switch Teleport.  What if it had a radial Radiation pulse at both ends?  I'd WANT to use that skill then, Parkour 2.0 be damned

A similar idea has been discussed, only in our version it only procced the target... but the target's radiation was contagious.

Also, you probably wouldn't want a rad proc on your point of arrival; invisibly jumping into a group of Bombards would go really bad for you if they all started shooting each other as soon as you showed up.

[Archwizard]

Perhaps Accelerant should increase the chance for enemies to receive status procs (much as actual accelerant makes it easier for things to catch fire, not just make the flames more potent). Then, you could combine it with the reworked passive in the OP, where Ember gains Power Strength per target burning, for just a bit of synergy, while still providing addtional utility to the team beyond "damage that is mostly just applicable to the caster"...

9 hours ago, Cytobel said:

As to Shocking Speed, it feels too much like what Speed always should've been.  I've been of the opinion since it was released that Speed barely has a purpose without it. 

To be honest, I'm the opposite. It's a good thing that Shocking Speed is an augment, in no small part because of Volt's passive; if it was the default state, you'd lose any charge as soon as you picked it up.

But your suggestion to have Speed teleport you to the target location via Shock is... quite something else.

9 hours ago, Cytobel said:

I've also got a long-standing issue with Electric Shield:  electricity just doesn't DO THAT.  If I can form shields from electric fields that are solid enough to stop bullets, then I can form similar fields inside someone else.  Form a shield halfway inside a charging Grineer, watch him come apart like he was unzipped....  If you can make electricity solid, NOTHING should be resistant to your lightning.  That sort of logic niggles at the back of my mind in the wee hours.

I actually just imagined it as using the properties of electromagnetism to repel (or propel, for players) certain metallic objects, rather than simply being a "solid" - after all, they can be walked through.

The fact that EShield doesn't zap enemies passing through it by default is something I question more. Much less that it doesn't even when you Shock it!

It could actually be interesting to have Volt's shield and ult deal some relatively low amount of base electrical damage per tick, and then just build it up by spamming Shock, stacking its damage onto theirs - on top of the earlier suggestion of having his ultimate's health cap reset on each Shock, of course. Makes sense for the electrical caster to charge his batteries, no?

Edited October 1, 2016 by Archwizard

[Aquasurge]

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

to have Speed teleport you to the target location via Shock is... quite something else.

personally, i feel that the teleport should replace rolling while speed is active.

[Archwizard]

2 hours ago, Aquasurge said:

personally, i feel that the teleport should replace rolling while speed is active.

Putting a short-distance instant teleport on the same trigger as removing Banish could lead to some unfortunate scenarios.

[Aquasurge]

22 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

Putting a short-distance instant teleport on the same trigger as removing Banish could lead to some unfortunate scenarios.

true, but that wouldn't be a problem if players couldn't opt out of the rift by rolling forwards, i mean banish and speed did get the opt out treatment change to back-flips and it doesn't make sense to have such an important parkour maneuver to cancel out the benefits of the rift.

[taiiat]

1 minute ago, Aquasurge said:

it doesn't make sense to have such an important parkour maneuver to cancel out the benefits of the rift.

backflips are important too.

[Aquasurge]

Just now, taiiat said:

backflips are important too.

but aren't used as often as rolling