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

[taiiat]

8 minutes ago, Aquasurge said:

I mean double tapping the evasion key

double tapping to use Rift Walk is okay i guess, but like many other combo buttons in many other games including Warframe, always has questionable reliability. execution rate can't be 100%.

honestly being able to separately bind these things for a Mouse and Keyboard lets the superior control option have superior control (which i am fine with), and Controllers can make combo buttons as they'll surely need to in order to compensate for their lack of functionality.

[Azamagon]

Tieing Limbo's selfbanishment to movement sounds HORRENDOUS, imo, honestly.

If they really wanted to give him a new button to press, why not just merge Rift Walk and Rift Surge? Rift Surge is (as Arch also has pointed out many times) useless by itself anyway.

[dartcraft]

+ I would like [DE] to re-rework Mag: It's a low-tier frame now, even with so called "synergy" implemented.

[taiiat]

meanwhile people are slaughtering single or large groups of high Level Enemies. Shielded, Armored or both - en masse with Mag.

[Gurpgork]

1 hour ago, taiiat said:

meanwhile people are slaughtering single or large groups of high Level Enemies. Shielded, Armored or both - en masse with Mag.

Not to mention keeping any enemies that miraculously managed to survive her Magnetize on the floor with Pull.

[Buzkyl]

Just now, dartcraft said:

+ I would like [DE] to re-rework Mag: It's a low-tier frame now, even with so called "synergy" implemented.

 

• Magnetize Provide hard CC and nukes groups of enemies also provides cover for allies from incoming attacks
• Pull is wide range CC
• Shield Polarize can strip armour off enemies easily

You're going to have to give reasons why she's low tier as many can perform well with her.

 

[Archwizard]

4 hours ago, dartcraft said:

+ I would like [DE] to re-rework Mag: It's a low-tier frame now, even with so called "synergy" implemented.

Frankly, the only issue I've heard with Mag since her rework is that Shield Polarize got a hard nerf.

Which, to some degree, both angles are understandable. The previous iteration of Shield Polarize was blatantly overpowered, clearing maps with one button press if Nullifiers weren't around to stop it (and, arguably, was one of the major reasons for the addition of Nullifiers, if not the top reason due to their relative exclusivity to factions vulnerable to the original skill). On the other hand, the current iteration is basically just a flat amount of damage that only affects shields.

Flat reduction is one thing when it's armor - enemies only have so much, and a reduction of even 100 can create a significant difference. Spam Polarize on an armored target enough times, eventually the armor will run out, which can reduce their EHP by a factor of tens. Quite another thing on shields though, where it's basically just standard HP damage.

It's a stark contrast, and people are pretty obviously upset that DE shied away from mentioning the coming nerf at all and just ninja-added it, even if we were all expecting it. Personally I think they should have strived for somewhere in the middle, perhaps reducing the shields by a percentage outright (or inflicting a guaranteed Magnetic proc) but removing the explosive burst. 

Does she need a re-rework? Not really. She has a lot of details that could use quality of life fixes (Pull flinging targets, Crush having minimal utility), but otherwise she's not underperforming, especially with Magnetize - just less popular now that she lacks her cheap "instant genocide" button.

[taiiat]

i think Crush basically being unchanged is a valid point to gripe with. everything else was adjusted to some degree, but Crush now basically doesn't even belong in her Ability set, and is only useful w/ Augment to heavily reduce Armor.

Magnetize is totes and Polarize could do with a little bit of scaling but is otherwise much more interesting to use, and Pull has direct, major involvement with those two Abilities - but Crush has no useful involvement.

 

obviously there's Warframes that have bigger problems, as 3 flexible, effective Abilities is already above average (.... :|) though.

[DreamsmithJane]

20 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Flat reduction is one thing when it's armor - enemies only have so much, and a reduction of even 100 can create a significant difference. Spam Polarize on an armored target enough times, eventually the armor will run out, which can reduce their EHP by a factor of tens. Quite another thing on shields though, where it's basically just standard HP damage.

Well...sort of. A level 100 Bombard has over 8000 armor. With 200% power strength, you'd have to cast Polarize 11 times to strip it. With max efficiency, you'd need at least a rank 2 Flow to even have the energy capacity to do that, not to mention the time to do it safely and let each wave propagate before recasting.

Shields, on the other hand...Polarize causes a magnetic explosion multiplied by the damage it deals. At the same 200% power strength, you're doing 800 flat shield damage upfront, multiplied by 5 as magnetic damage in an 8m (base) radius to other nearby enemies only, further multiplied by 1.75 against shields, not counting the equal shard damage if you have active Magnetize bubbles. A level 100 Anti MOA has about 37k shields, so if there are at least 6 other enemies near it, its shields disappear in one cast. A Bursa has ~52k shields at level 100, requiring ~8 enemies behind it to strip its shields with a single cast.

So when people say Polarize got nerfed hard, they're right, but it's really not that bad against shields. As for armor, well, if Damage 3.0 fixes enemy scaling so that multiplicative stats like armor don't scale, then flat armor damage is going to make a lot more sense. Hey...a girl can dream, right? XD

By the way, I actually came here to mention that day form Equinox doesn't want to draw aggro, so Hide & Heckle seems like a bad augment. I imagine the thinking was that she'd disarm enemies with the improved Rage, and they'd rush in at her, only to eat Maim point-blank, but she's still going to get shot by the ones she doesn't disarm, and without Pacify, she's going to die. And if she does switch and turn on Pacify, she'll survive, but it won't matter, because they'll stop attacking her anyway. Seems counter-intuitive.

[taiiat]

2 hours ago, DreamsmithJane said:

Well...sort of. A level 100 Bombard has over 8000 armor. With 200% power strength, you'd have to cast Polarize 11 times to strip it. With max efficiency, you'd need at least a rank 2 Flow to even have the energy capacity to do that, not to mention the time to do it safely and let each wave propagate before recasting.

Shields, on the other hand...Polarize causes a magnetic explosion multiplied by the damage it deals. At the same 200% power strength, you're doing 800 flat shield damage upfront, multiplied by 5 as magnetic damage in an 8m (base) radius to other nearby enemies only, further multiplied by 1.75 against shields, not counting the equal shard damage if you have active Magnetize bubbles. A level 100 Anti MOA has about 37k shields, so if there are at least 6 other enemies near it, its shields disappear in one cast. A Bursa has ~52k shields at level 100, requiring ~8 enemies behind it to strip its shields with a single cast.

(the Explosions happen when Armor is drained as well, not only Shields. obviously it's much less effective vs Armor but not the point)

[DreamsmithJane]

2 hours ago, taiiat said:

(the Explosions happen when Armor is drained as well, not only Shields. obviously it's much less effective vs Armor but not the point)

Indeed. I simply found them more relevant in finishing the job of removing shields, since damage of any sort doesn't normally remove armor at all. The point I was trying to make is that it remains effective against shields even at sortie levels (unless it's an enhanced shield sortie, but that's what Entropy Supra is for), while armor scaling is something of an aberration. The part that got nerfed was mostly the ability to cause health damage in sufficient quantities to kill Corpus of any level in one cast.

[taiiat]

hm... aside from all of our feelings for or against the Ability - World on Fire could be much less of an idling Ability even without being polymorphed into a chicken.

if World on Fire had a Rate of Fire of say, 0.5 (once ever two seconds), retained the targeting what is considered to be of highest Threat to Ember, but increased the Damage, and AoE of that singular Fire Explosion(650-675, 7 Meters?) - we have the foundation for something that works very nicely.

and then we add all Enemies within AoE of that larger Fire Explosion are Staggered (non overriding, don't override higher 'Tier' CC Effects).
initial AoE on Cast remains (probably same Damage as now), Enemies hit by that AoE are ignited and knocked down. (remember this burst has a target cap)

 

and then FireQuake, Fire Explosions instead launch Enemies up into the air, with them landing on their face.
also leaves patches of Fire on the ground after the Explosions, that last for... 12? seconds modifiable by Duration. working similar to now, so any Enemies walking onto that zone are knocked down as well as ignited
(probably... don't apply the WoF Damage, but do apply the Fire Status based off of that Damage? that might even allow such patches to not need to be in range of Accelerant for Accelerant to boost? well maybe it still would need to be since it affects the Enemies rather than Abilities themselves. however i wouldn't be opposed to these patches being able to be boosted by Accelerant to be boosted without Ember needing to be at that location).

 

just a sudden thought that improves Player interaction with World on Fire, while still retaining the nice VFX that the Ability creates. very similar theme too, just functioning differently in those rules.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

 

(default Fire Explosions could even heat the ground over the course of a couple seconds, slowing any Enemies above that point and with a small Chance to ignite, then bursting from the ground like an actual Explosion! would probably attack a bit faster if it did this due to the added delay)

Edited December 13, 2016 by taiiat

[tnccs215]

@DreamsmithJane, dont know if you know, but Fracturing Crush has an interesting synergy with Polarize now. When Mag got reworked, they let it scale with p Strength up to 80% reduction. It's also stackable. So, you can complete and permanently strip a level 135 Corrupted Heavy Gunner of her armor with two casts of F. Crush followed by one of Polarize, with 180% Str.

Its a fun functionality, and hinestly I think fusing the augment to the base ability would be good -- as Taiiat said, Crush as it is needs something.

 

[DreamsmithJane]

35 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

@DreamsmithJane, dont know if you know, but Fracturing Crush has an interesting synergy with Polarize now. When Mag got reworked, they let it scale with p Strength up to 80% reduction. It's also stackable. So, you can complete and permanently strip a level 135 Corrupted Heavy Gunner of her armor with two casts of F. Crush followed by one of Polarize, with 180% Str.

Its a fun functionality, and hinestly I think fusing the augment to the base ability would be good -- as Taiiat said, Crush as it is needs something.

 

I realized the synergy, but I didn't realize F. Crush scales with power strength now. That changes things considerably. I'm about 20k standing away from rank 5 with Perrin right now, so I'll get to see for myself soon, I suppose. I've thought the base Crush deserved at least the CC from the augment built in for a while, now. If I had to change anything about Mag, it would be that.

[Cytobel]

I'm still waiting to see what DE does with Volt's rework flop.  The only times I see Volt played by someone else now is the RARE Speed Volt (same as pre-rework) and someone leveling Prime.  That's just my experience, yours may vary.

It strikes me that more than one 'Frame still need to see some love in order really start upsetting play trends, and I DON'T mean bandaid mods.

The saddest thing about Warframe 2016 is that this tiering of 'Frames still hasn't been addressed.  Some 'Frames are just superior to others, period.  That's something we should have seen go away in '14 or '15, not an issue we should still be discussing.

[DreamsmithJane]

On 12/13/2016 at 4:14 AM, DreamsmithJane said:

I realized the synergy, but I didn't realize F. Crush scales with power strength now. That changes things considerably. I'm about 20k standing away from rank 5 with Perrin right now, so I'll get to see for myself soon, I suppose. I've thought the base Crush deserved at least the CC from the augment built in for a while, now. If I had to change anything about Mag, it would be that.

Having used Fracturing Crush for myself...it definitely feels like what the power should have been in the first place. I doubt we'll ever see it built in, so I guess the mod has a permanent place in my builds now. It's just too good at making sure enemies stay inside Magnetize. Can't pass it up. If there's just one change I'd make to Mag, it would have to be that. Finally using Crush regularly, and it makes the whole frame feel better.

[tnccs215]

2 hours ago, Cytobel said:

The saddest thing about Warframe 2016 is that this tiering of 'Frames still hasn't been addressed.  Some 'Frames are just superior to others, period.  That's something we should have seen go away in '14 or '15, not an issue we should still be discussing.

DE fell for (or, worse, agreed with in the first placd) the rhetoric defending that different power tiers are different playstyles. For them, "overpowered" is as much a legitimate playstyle as "healer" or "debuffer". Nevermind it literally is benefiting some players over others -- because, if you want different difficulties, you should had a difficulty menu, instead of making some frames objectively better than others -- at the perfect they are "free to play as they want". Everyone else gets  f ucked when nullifiers are introduced to balance the economy, but hey what does that matter? "They're free!  F uck everyone else! Balance is oppression! Nerfs are always bad!"

Ugh.

I don't know what the f uck went wrong this year. It seems there was a general brain matter meltdown and people forgot what "community", "empathy", "compassion" stand for. Nah. Let's defend the right for selfishness as a worthy thing to fight for.

[dartcraft]

On 11.12.2016 at 5:28 AM, Buzkyl said:

 

• Magnetize Provide hard CC and nukes groups of enemies also provides cover for allies from incoming attacks
• Pull is wide range CC
• Shield Polarize can strip armour off enemies easily

You're going to have to give reasons why she's low tier as many can perform well with her.

 

Can you tell me please, what "nuking enemy groups" are you talking about?

[taiiat]

5 hours ago, dartcraft said:

Can you tell me please, what "nuking enemy groups" are you talking about?

combining your Abilities to casually Kill like, Lv100 Augmented Armor Enemies?
Pull, Magnetize, and Polarize all have strong involvement with each other, in various combinations. and Crush if w/ Augment.

[DreamsmithJane]

12 hours ago, dartcraft said:

Can you tell me please, what "nuking enemy groups" are you talking about?

You mean the fact that Magnetize explodes at the end of duration, for a multiple of all the damage it absorbed, without a cap? Because it's basically just that, as long as the target dies before the duration ends. It's like Antimatter Drop, but with a smaller multiplier and no upper limit, and it does blast damage instead of radiation. If you've stripped all armor, it's likely to kill everything in range.

[taiiat]

1 hour ago, DreamsmithJane said:

but with a smaller multiplier

(one that can actually be modified by Power Strength, though)

not that Pull and Polarize don't have strong use as well. they all strongly support each other.

[Archwizard]

Finally got my Nidus in the oven.

Usual rules apply, I need to cap him before I pass any judgments on him for the OP.

Hard to write any preliminary assessments of his powers just in terms of concept though, owing to some of the more unique mechanics in his kit. Doesn't seem to have a lot of loose ends, especially with his first power having synergy with just about all of the others. Anything else I could possibly think he has openings for to improve his kit (like interactions between his other abilities), could just as easily be augments. (Which is, of course, exactly why I playtest to 30 first, to try and find anything that affects quality of life or that feels lacking.)

It is curious though, that he's possibly one of the most mod-agnostic concepts so far. No shields, incentive to avoid Power Efficiency... but it does make me curious, what with him having a way to boost Power Strength, how that effect snapshots if he adds on another source of Power Strength...

Edited December 26, 2016 by Archwizard

[taiiat]

21 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

incentive to avoid Power Efficiency...

not quite, the refund scales with Efficiency to always be the same amount.
which doesn't encourage you to use bad Efficiency, but rather makes it less difficult to use bad Efficiency.

[Archwizard]

1 minute ago, taiiat said:

the refund scales with Efficiency to always be the same amount.

I was mostly referring to how half his kit doesn't use energy, and the half that does is very cheap - you wouldn't even need Flow for him. For the most part, combined with the refund, as long as his costs don't exceed his energy pool I would say he can freely ignore anything that affects energy cost.

[taiiat]

3 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

For the most part, combined with the refund, as long as his costs don't exceed his energy pool I would say he can freely ignore anything that affects energy cost.

certainly, esp since you'll tend to be able to take full use of Rage, since in most circumstances you're invulnerable. and if that doesn't cut it, as many second tries to make it cut it as you'd like.