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

[Aquasurge]

28 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

So, Inaros came out two days ago. Usual policy, plus I just put him in the oven this morning.

don't you mean harrow?

[Archwizard]

Just now, Aquasurge said:

don't you mean harrow?

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

[1tsyB1tsyN1nj4]

Because Trinity is supposed to be the rare healing focused frame. Even less people would play her if she was super complex. Harrow is just a straight up support Warframe, like Trinity but Trinity focuses on the heals and energy solely

Edited June 30, 2017 by 1tsyB1tsyN1nj4

[tnccs215]

36 minutes ago, 1tsyB1tsyN1nj4 said:

Because Trinity is supposed to be the rare healing focused frame. Even less people would play her if she was super complex. Harrow is just a straight up support Warframe, like Trinity but Trinity focuses on the heals and energy solely

Effectiveness isn't dependent on skill demand. Trinity could be just as effective - barring her game breaking EV - while demanding more skill. She is a powerful frame. She should demand effort to unlock that power. 

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

1.  
2. Blessing: Trinity grants her nearby allies 1 second of damage immunity per rank, unaffected by mods. Additionally, allies have extended bleedout times for a duration, and Trinity will split her own health among fallen allies in order to revive them.

Won't that make every Trinity build just spam Blessing every 3 seconds? Honestly, I can see your intention, but it could work on any game beyond Warframe. 

[Archwizard]

Just now, tnccs215 said:

Won't that make every Trinity build just spam Blessing every 3 seconds? Honestly, I can see your intention, but it could work on any game beyond Warframe. 

Part of the intent is to pace out Energy Vampire's restoration so it's not as efficient for that type of build. So while it's a theoretically possible build, it's highly improbable due to the cost.

[tnccs215]

2 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

Part of the intent is to pace out Energy Vampire's restoration so it's not as efficient for that type of build. So while it's a theoretically possible build, it's highly improbable due to the cost.

No doubt. But being unaffected by mods, you're free to go full maximized efficiency, and compensate using EV. 

I don't know. It just doesn't seem enough. Harrow might have a cool down, but he still has that has part of his ability. If your intent is too use it as an emergency tool, than Harrow will beat her by the mile - objectively speaking.

I really appreciate your work, but this idea needs much more time in the hoven. 

[Archwizard]

4 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

I really appreciate your work, but this idea needs much more time in the hoven. 

Which is why I put it up for discussion.

However, I find it unlikely that any player will spend their time spamming Blessing to maintain the immunity at such a small period.

But, I suppose it could be reduced to 2-3 seconds instead to carry that a little further.

Edited June 30, 2017 by Archwizard

[tnccs215]

Just now, Archwizard said:

Which is why I put it up for discussion.

Fair enough. 

[Azamagon]

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

So, Harrow came out two days ago. Usual policy, plus I just put him in the oven this morning.

In the meantime, I saw some interesting discussion about Trinity on Reddit and I'm going to beat the dead horse.

Presently the issues with Trinity's kit that still need addressing, are that 1) Energy Vampire encourages mindless loot caving and eliminates intended energy penalties by means of its heavy burst (achieved by using negative Duration), 2) Blessing outplays literally every healing effect in the game, giving her zero reason to use Well of Life, and 3) Trinity has little skill ceiling to her abilities, generally making her less effort to use than other frames who provide 'weaker' versions of the same utilities (ie the newest addition, Harrow).

While I have been considering altering Blessing so that it focuses more heavily on being an emergency tool (with a focus on Well of Life for standard healing), it only just dawned on me that many of these issues could be addressed simply by swapping the mechanics of Well of Life and Energy Vampire; your entire loot cave can't receive energy if your nuker is the only one attacking, while the need for Blessing will take a hit if there is another way for Trinity to forcibly heal allies.

So, a proposal for today:

1. Well of Life: Trinity grows a tree from the target, draining a percentage of its health every second and emitting that damage as radial bursts of healing. This effect will also attempt to immobilize the target, and if successful, any damage dealt to the target by Trinity's allies is stored and dealt at the end of the effect, a la Mind Control; Trinity can prematurely end this effect by recasting on the same target. Limit one target per rank.
   1. Augment: The victim of Well of Life also Links to nearby allies, partially redirecting damage to itself.
2. Energy Vampire: Trinity marks the target, causing any damage it receives to restore energy to the attacker, up to a cap per Tenno, as well as emit radial bursts of electricity to stun nearby enemies. Limit 1 target.
   1. Alternative: While Energy Vampire is active, the target will emit bursts of electricity and periodically release an energy orb.
3. Link: Unchanged.
4. Blessing: Trinity grants her nearby allies 1 second of damage immunity per rank, unaffected by mods. Additionally, allies have extended bleedout times for a duration, and Trinity will split her own health among fallen allies in order to revive them.
5. Passive: Trinity is treated as two Tenno for the purposes of reviving allies and can revive allies at a greater distance.

1. WoL - That sounds really good, and that augment sounds amazing. But... why grow a tree? xD However, I'd remove the need to recast on the same target to cancel, just make it work like MC (cast anywhere to end current effect early)
2. EV - Does redirected damage (for example, your augmented WoL, or Trinity's own Link) count towards the energy restore too? Just saying, that'd be a cool natural synergy between EV and augmented WoL and/or Link.
   Also, I'd suggest that the energy granted would be X energy (affected by Power Strength) pulsating for all allies, for every Y% health the target loses during its marking time. That way, an enemy cannot provide more than a set amount of energy, and it keeps some synergy with the WoL draining percentual health too. It also gives her a reason to not keep the WoL-target alive for too long, as otherwise you might be losing out on energygains. Natural antitrolling incentive, pretty much.
   
   I'd even suggest another alternative for EV:
   Trinity marks an enemy with EV, which causes it to do the radial bursts of stunning electricity (max 1 enemy affected at a time?). If the target is killed while affected, Trinity gains a stack of Energy Aura (which can stack up to 3 times). Her Energy Aura causes Trinity to restore 1 energy/second per stack, for X seconds, to herself and all allies within Y radius. Getting a stack refreshes ALL stacks.
   The point of this version is to 1) Remove the extreme energybursts and 2) Let Trinity do more with her other abilities / fight, rather than needing to spam it over and over.
    
3. Blessing - Is this with the removal of the healtth+shield restore? Regardless, I'd actually suggest to replace the current restore with a group-Iron Skin-ish effect instead (with some base health further fueled by the invulnerability period, but grants no CC-immunity. Augment could grant anti-CC perhaps?). This would emphasize WoL as the continuous healing tool, and Blessing as the emergency tool in a way where they actually complement each other. Even better if excess WoL-healing would repair the Blessing's missing "skin"-health (but never past 100%)
4. Passive - Sounds good

[Archwizard]

30 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

-snip-

1. The tree was more of an aesthetic thing - sort of a "life blooms eternal" sort of deal, with life literally growing out of the target. (Plus I was thinking of the white Technocyte trees seen in the Void.)
   As far as the recast: I wanted to extend the number of targets that could be Well'd at once, in case of a need for burst healing.
2. It could! I hadn't considered it, but I'm thinking it now. The main synergy I was focusing on with WoL was just for WoL to increase the uptime on EV, since the target would no longer release a burst when killed and it restores energy for every second it's active.
   I didn't want to have it pulse energy to all allies since that would just repeat the issue it was attempting to fix. If it was a radial energy gain based on the target's % damage taken, it actually runs counter to the synergy with her 1 since WoL would just slow the effect down compared to just shooting the guy, at least until high enough levels that WoL's your only source of damage.
   And again, WoL will simply deal the stored damage to the target when it ends, so you can't keep it up forever - there's your anti-trolling incentive.
   While I appreciate the alternative offer, I must point out that having a low periodic energy gain is basically little more effective than having Limbo or Octavia restore energy; I want her to be able to supply enough energy to sustain herself if she uses it conservatively, but not be utterly bereft of it when she doesn't.
3. Correct, no health and shield restore. (Unless the health it restores to fallen targets exceeds their maximum, I suppose.)
   I'm not sure about the group Iron Skin, since it might emphasize the same issues tnccs215 pointed out above with the brief damage invulnerability: people will make builds to maintain the absorption effect, rather than to save it for emergencies.

Edited June 30, 2017 by Archwizard

[taiiat]

Trinity by design will be a box of nails - you've completely changed the paradigm of the Warframe. no longer self durable, due to less durability capability from Abilities, and also cannot cast Abilities at leisure to always ensure capability.
which as currently, are the two things the Warframe does. which in effect are one thing - doesn't die. that's what Trinity does. plus making it harder for Allies to die and provides Energy.

in short, "i don't die by always having Energy and having multiple forms of durability" is rather critical to Trinity actually being a useful Warframe outside of AFKFarming.

 

aside from that, i'll note that caps like that are part of why Well of Life is basically useless, why Discharge is unreliable and such, Et Cetera.
and that by your description it basically sounds like Mods don't affect Blessing in any way that's realistically relevant to Gameplay(if we're assuming outside of AFKFarming which i'd imagine we are). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[1tsyB1tsyN1nj4]

5 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

Effectiveness isn't dependent on skill demand. Trinity could be just as effective - barring her game breaking EV - while demanding more skill. She is a powerful frame. She should demand effort to unlock that power. 

Depends on your definition of "effort" You know how this community is

[tnccs215]

6 hours ago, 1tsyB1tsyN1nj4 said:

Depends on your definition of "effort" You know how this community is

Yes, but that's why I'm here, reading this and commenting on this - and not talking to the other idiot on the other thread telling me that EV Trinity is perfectly fine because she's supposed to support RJ Excalibur. 

Edited July 1, 2017 by tnccs215

[Archwizard]

18 hours ago, taiiat said:

Trinity by design will be a box of nails - you've completely changed the paradigm of the Warframe. no longer self durable, due to less durability capability from Abilities, and also cannot cast Abilities at leisure to always ensure capability.
which as currently, are the two things the Warframe does. which in effect are one thing - doesn't die. that's what Trinity does. plus making it harder for Allies to die and provides Energy.

in short, "i don't die by always having Energy and having multiple forms of durability" is rather critical to Trinity actually being a useful Warframe outside of AFKFarming.

 

aside from that, i'll note that caps like that are part of why Well of Life is basically useless, why Discharge is unreliable and such, Et Cetera.
and that by your description it basically sounds like Mods don't affect Blessing in any way that's realistically relevant to Gameplay(if we're assuming outside of AFKFarming which i'd imagine we are). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I wouldn't call Trinity "no longer self-durable" - ideally she'd still give the same energy and protection, just not as quickly or mindlessly, and the former not from across the map.

There's no point to everyone shooting Well of Life for health 'cuz Trinity has Blessing, and the effect has a cap anyway; Energy Vampire, however, contributes to Complacent Gaming Syndrome because you don't have to aim for it and you'll get the energy no matter what you do so long as you're in range. It's long been an issue we've both agreed needs tackling.

The only ability I've presently written to get a cap is Energy Vampire. Considering the ability has a pseudo-cap per cast anyway (due to always giving exactly 4 ticks regardless of Duration), I see no issue in this implementation other than the use of the word "cap".

As written, Blessing currently has a contribution from Duration (and possibly Strength) mods to contribute to the bleedout buff, and from Health mods for the restoration effect - which is better than I can say for existing examples of "realistically unaffected by mods" like Teleport or many raw damage skills. (Besides, the health split encourages reliance on Well of Life's healing, which is affected by mods before you even get to her ult.)

The only effect I aimed not to be affected by mods at all is the damage immunity, due to historic precedent. The original iteration of Blessing could be modded to provide a 100% uptime on complete damage immunity. I wanted what I believe the devs intended for it, a snap protective tool to turn the tide of a losing battle, or a reactive mechanism in the face of an unavoidable attack. She heals, but needs someone to heal, which is why she also protects. (As opposed to Oberon, who protects, but can't maintain it on mitigation alone, which is why he heals.)

Edited July 1, 2017 by Archwizard

[taiiat]

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

I wouldn't call Trinity "no longer self-durable" - ideally she'd still give the same energy and protection, just not as quickly or mindlessly, and the former not from across the map.

There's no point to everyone shooting Well of Life for health 'cuz Trinity has Blessing, and the effect has a cap anyway;
The only ability I've presently written to get a cap is Energy Vampire. Considering the ability has a pseudo-cap per cast anyway (due to always giving exactly 4 ticks regardless of Duration), I see no issue in this implementation other than the use of the word "cap".

As written, Blessing currently has a contribution from Duration (and possibly Strength) mods to contribute to the bleedout buff, and from Health mods for the restoration effect - which is better than I can say for existing examples of "realistically unaffected by mods" like Teleport or many raw damage skills. (Besides, the health split encourages reliance on Well of Life's healing, which is affected by mods before you even get to her ult.)

I wanted what I believe the devs intended for it, a snap protective tool to turn the tide of a losing battle, or a reactive mechanism in the face of an unavoidable attack. She heals, but needs someone to heal, which is why she also protects. (As opposed to Oberon, who protects, but can't maintain it on mitigation alone, which is why he heals.)

that is the worry though - being able to supply herself with Energy very effectively and ergo meaning Trinity effectively has Infinite Energy, supports having Link permanently active and (re)casting Blessing anytime you're low.
this is pretty Energy expensive to do, but it's what makes Trinity useful to herself. because for herself, that's pretty much all Trinity does currently.
changing the paradigm of the Warframe is okay, as long as out comes with in. if Trinity is less capable at 'always' preventing her own death, must have other features to replace it.

sure, Energy Vampire now does have an end. but a 'cap' implies a point where Mods stop doing anything, which i'd say is preferred to avoid if possible. currently Energy Vampire doesn't have a 'cap' in that more Strength always continues to increase the Ability (for better or for worse).
look at uh... Nova - nobody uses more than +45% Power Strength. there's just no useful benefit in 99% of Gameplay. that's... not ideal.
ideally, the mechanics of an Ability would either self moderate, or any sort of 'cap' would be lenient enough so that Players feel freedom more often than limited. basically, if there's another way to prevent an Ability from going off the deep end, i'd prefer to do that first.

since it's brought up, i'll mention that within the past month i coincidentally happened to have a simple 'riddle me this' thought for Energy Vampire - having Range Falloff. very simple, but makes casting it near yourself or Allies rather than just anywhere important to get much benefit out of it. that alone would make a big impact.
i also noted that Trinity should always receive the cost of the Ability so that the game selecting the wrong Enemy or other unexpected situations can't leave Trinity having ended up with no Energy. so you need to cast Energy Vampire close to yourself to gain Energy, or close to Allies for them to - but you get the Casting cost back either way, so you always break even.
Energy Orbs are also interesting, and could be such a component - though i'd prefer as an additional feature rather than replacing an Energy Pulse. could be one per Cast or one per N Energy value of the Ability(like uh idk per 100 from the Pulse) or something. which also acts as a sort of 'backup' if Allies are not in Range or not very close - if they didn't get much from it, there's N number of Energy Orbs on the ground they can grab instead.

 

Mods do affect Bleedout increase yes, but i think we know this is a minor effect that rarely comes into play. i noticed Health Mods for Health split yes - which is neat but Ability Mods are what's mostly missing.
i also noticed usage with Well of Life yes, but that doesn't sound like a very active conjoint as you cast Well of Life and stand near it and that's it. :(
there's other Abilities big and small that have issues like this - but i have the same view towards them. Ability Mods exist, they should... do something. they need to do something infact - if some Ability Mods don't do something for an Ability, it gets a free ride from Mods that do affect it, Et Cetera.

anyways, if Blessing did more things, then i'm sure finding ways to make Ability Mods used and desired to have could be found.
might work inside of the couple things, if Health split is perhaps expanded - dividing Health on Ally death to prevent theirs, also dividing Health once on cast with anyone that isn't at max Health (don't waste any Health ofc, if someone is missing 5 Health don't divide Trinitys' Health in half).... well i'm out of stuff too. but i know more is likely needed to give founding to attach Ability Mods to.
i also must be worried here because if Blessing doesn't provide Damage Resistance, then Trinity now must rely on standing near Well of Life with Link and simply hoping death won't occur, without much control over whether that happens or not (and then sending her Health to Allies as well). i keep bringing this up partially because that's basically the theme of the Warframe currently, but also partially because we don't want Trinity having to spend a lot of time micromanaging her own survivability, because then she won't have much/any time to pay attention to the survivability of others.

 

you are correct in that you're making Trinity and Oberon reverses of each other.

Edited July 1, 2017 by taiiat

[Archwizard]

2 hours ago, taiiat said:

that is the worry though - being able to supply herself with Energy very effectively and ergo meaning Trinity effectively has Infinite Energy, supports having Link permanently active and (re)casting Blessing anytime you're low.
this is pretty Energy expensive to do, but it's what makes Trinity useful to herself. because for herself, that's pretty much all Trinity does currently.
changing the paradigm of the Warframe is okay, as long as out comes with in. if Trinity is less capable at 'always' preventing her own death, must have other features to replace it.

Hence the change to Well of Life (to no longer require you to shoot at the target, plus the scaled healing and ability to stack for increased burst) and to Blessing (to provide a brief damage barrier, and extend bleedout in group play).

The problem with this argument, though, is that it assumes that unless Trinity is able to destroy the energy economy in order to spam her abilities, she is, by default, completely underpowered if she cannot sustain herself.
Respectfully, I disagree that there is no acceptable middle ground, where Trinity can sustain her healing and defense but cannot spam her ultimate, nor encourage others to do so.

2 hours ago, taiiat said:

sure, Energy Vampire now does have an end. but a 'cap' implies a point where Mods stop doing anything, which i'd say is preferred to avoid if possible.

... Not what I was implying at all. 

Well of Life presently has a cap on the amount of healing it can give to a person per cast, which increases with Power Strength. Same idea with the reworked Vampire - if you cap Power Strength, your Vampire will give 299 energy per target, they just have to wack that energy piñata till they get it. I basically just swapped the mechanics of Well and Vamp; no upper limit beyond what mods can do.

2 hours ago, taiiat said:

Mods do affect Bleedout increase yes, but i think we know this is a minor effect that rarely comes into play. i noticed Health Mods for Health split yes - which is neat but Ability Mods are what's mostly missing.

You are welcome to suggest further additions to this that are affected by mods, but I will say that I don't think the bleedout increase is 'minor'. There are several missions where the ability to extend a bleedout is greatly appreciated whenever the group ends up splitting, or cut off by a door.

The health split is mostly just so Trinity has a penalty for relying on Blessing too often while encouraging her to use the extended bleedout and her passive's increase to recovery speed.

2 hours ago, taiiat said:

i also must be worried here because if Blessing doesn't provide Damage Resistance, then Trinity now must rely on standing near Well of Life with Link and simply hoping death won't occur, without much control over whether that happens or not (and then sending her Health to Allies as well)

Considering that the current build for Energy Vampire allows it to pulse up to 60 yards, I don't think that's a huge issue if a similar effect is used for Well (minus the Duration scaling).

Edited July 1, 2017 by Archwizard

[Archwizard]

Well... Tennolive just featured someone reiterating exactly what we've been saying about Trinity, so that's... neat.

As for Harrow, sorry about the delays on Feedback, I haven't had a chance to play him since the buffs came out and still haven't actually finished leveling him yet.

It also seems that Hydroid feedback is going to become very relevant very soon... I started a Reddit thread with his main grievances so far.

Edited July 8, 2017 by Archwizard

[1tsyB1tsyN1nj4]

Biggest issue with Hydroid is that someone decided it was a good idea to have RNG in his abilities. I still like my idea for a rework for him.

[Endless_Destruction]

Hello everybody, I see a discussion on Trinity going on, and I'm sorry for interrupting, but I would like you to reconsider your Chroma rework, as I believe he can be improved dramatically, but not in the way this thread suggests.

The tweaks suggested involved making Spectral Scream less useless, and Effigy less energy hungry while being more useful, which are great changes, but Elemental Ward and Vex Armor were barely touched at all, when they have a lot that could be improved.

Spectral Scream:

Spoiler

This can serve as a vehicle for changing Chroma's elemental type in-mission. It is rather restrictive to limit Chroma to one element due to his energy color and give him no way to change, especially when Equinox can switch between her forms seamlessly. Why can she do this and not Chroma? I suggest: tapping 1 switches elemental type at no energy cost, while holding 1 casts spectral scream for the selected elemental type. Energy Color only influences which elemental type is selected at the start of the mission.

Elemental Ward:

Spoiler

Toxic Chroma needs a buff to his affect on allies, and his toxic proc radius. I suggest increasing both reload speed and holster speed to +60%, and bringing his toxic proc radius up to 10 meters. Cold Chroma only allows tanky frames to get more tanky, but it doesn't really give squishy frames that ability, so I would suggest allowing Ice Ward to give a flat armor value OR the current percentage value to a given frame, whichever is greater. Electric Chroma's Ward only affects a single target, and in a game where enemies are dense and sources of damage are plentiful, I suggest allowing Chroma's arc to chain through multiple enemies, with 4 enemies at level 3, modifiable with Power Strength. Fire Chroma's radius for damage should be brought to 10 meters, and the status chance be increased to 20%.

As it is, Cold Chroma and Fire Chroma are really the only ones used outside low levels, and Cold Chroma is nearly always preferred. I would like every variation of Elemental Ward be brought to Cold Chroma's level of usefulness, and these changes can be a start.

Vex Armor/Passive:

Spoiler

Vex Armor can make Chroma nigh invincible. Until his duration expires. Then he's as vulnerable as the rest of the frames. This ability as well as Elemental Ward make him play like a timer-management frame: Press 2 and 3, walk through the mission, reactivate when it goes down. What I would like to see is a permanent version of Vex Armor: a Chroma that grows more powerful as time goes on, scaling with the enemies. This can be accomplished by nerfing Vex Armor and making it unaffected by Power Strength, but removing its caps, and making it Chroma's passive, replacing the energy color=elemental type passive. This way, Scorn and Fury will always be active, stack constantly, and make Chroma the behemoth that he is presented as. When entering a nullifier bubble, Scorn and Fury will gradually drain.

This opens up a new slot for an ability, one that can better fit with Chroma's theme and make up for his weakness. Chroma needs healing constantly, because Vex Armor requires him to take damage to get more powerful, and this new ability can be used to heal Chroma.

I don't have any special ideas on what this ability could be other than a quick self-heal, but I was hoping that if you all found the idea to be agreeable, then you all could help come up with one.

Effigy: I agree with the changes presented in this thread. All I would like to see is that the effigy would retain the elemental type selected by his 1, allowing Chroma to switch freely, potentially having two active elemental wards of different types.

Thank you for reading!

Edited July 9, 2017 by Endless_Destruction

[taiiat]

39 minutes ago, Endless_Destruction said:

 I suggest: tapping 1 switches elemental type at no energy cost, while holding 1 casts spectral scream for the selected elemental type. Energy Color only influences which elemental type is selected at the start of the mission.

As it is, Cold Chroma and Fire Chroma are really the only ones used outside low levels, and Cold Chroma is nearly always preferred.

Vex Armor

while this works, you may have not seen my mentions of that Chroma can be truly flexible (which follows the Chromatic theme) via each Elementally attuning Ability being able to change Elemental separate from each other (as well as mid mission ofc).
it also means every type of Ward doesn't have to be as stupid as Ice Ward to be useful.

 

actually, Ice/Electric are the only ones realistically used - Fire Ward is useless for Chroma himself, as Ice Ward is drastically more EHP. Fire Ward is mostly useless for anyone else because it can only Heal once, and then is just basically 2x Health which isn't particularly useful for... like anyone that isn't another Chroma that could take advantage of the extra Health.
i mean sure, someone could get some benefit if they were relying on Rage and now they have more Health to work with for more Energy before they Heal themselves - but they were surely already far in the positive on their relation. or maybe a Nidus but who are we kidding - Health Max isn't the 'problem' with Nidus, he's already regenning for an effective uh... 2000+/sec. if he dies, Health Max wasn't the problem.

anyways, adjustments to Toxic/Fire Ward i agree with. the big thing is being able to change what Ward you have at any time(stacking any of the Abilities together is looking for trouble though) - that means every Ward doesn't have to be... basically blatantly Overpowered like Ice in order to be considered worth using.

 

hmm, making Vex Armor something Passive.... that could be interesting, though would almost surely necessitate pretty slow growth and only growing so often per second.

[Archwizard]

So, Harrow.

I will grant I didn't have much of a chance to try him out prior to his buffs, but following, he seems like a pretty solid Warframe.

Ironically, in many ways Harrow seems like he does what Trinity should have done all along - which is what is somewhat disappointing about him, that he takes this direction for himself so that she may not use exactly the same design.
Penance puts a life-leeching buff on the player, in lieu of on the enemy target. Thurible forces him to work for the energy provided, preventing him from being abused in lootcaves. His ultimate protects the team and rewards players for saving it for moments of crisis (although like the previous Blessing model, it can be abused). 

I will say, while I can see the intended design and synergies for Harrow, I have personally found it more difficult to manage all of his buffs and effects in practice than virtually any other existing frame save maybe Nidus - not that this is necessarily a bad thing, since it does give him significant room for a skill ceiling.

It is curious that Thurible marks all allies in range with a buff indicator for energy gains even though Harrow has to be the one to get the kills in order to restore energy; I have no problem with it (since it indicates allies are within range while Penance uses the affinity radar), but it does seem a bit misleading, like your allies are making their own energy by killing.
Likewise, it's unusual that both Thurible and Penance require Harrow be the one to kill targets, since DE has changed skills with similar executions before in order to accentuate differences in use, like Sonar vs Silence or Well of Life vs Energy Vampire.
And, in spite of Harrow getting the ability to restore shields to himself, he can't do the same for allies. Probably to be a future augment, unfortunately.

He does appear to have a disappointing shortage of energy capacity, but given his ability to generate more from his own pool, it's understandable that this was an intended tuning knob; my current build has about 10% energy conversion and Primed Flow, so giving him a higher energy capacity would probably be too much. Why it comes with an oddly-high armor base, I doubt we'll ever know.

While I understand why Harrow is locked out of non-movement actions while channeling Thurible - in order to remove incentive from spending long periods channeling all of your energy into one skill, thereby adding a challenge into your energy efficiency - I think he could at least stand to have, say, stagger protection while channeling it, or perhaps a stun on enemies who get too close as he whips a heavy flail around, since he has no other means to defend himself.

Otherwise though, not much I personally have to offer for him. He has a solid kit; the lack of ability damage makes him more difficult to level than most frames, but that's more of a fault of the affinity system than the frame himself. The emphasis on landing headshots for his kit does compound this issue, since it encourages using multiple weapons; I tried to level him with just Scourge at first, before transferring to Sword Alone with my Silva & Aegis Prime, and finally to my Sancti Tigris, and I still feel like I may have missed the point of his kit. I haven't built a Nukor yet, but I think he would be excellent with it and a Power Throw-built Glaive (for throwing at your own feet during Covenant), or perhaps another rocket launcher of some kind.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Archwizard

[Archwizard]

3 minutes ago, DERealMegan said:

Chains of Harrow: Hotfix 21.0.8

Changes:

• The Stalker can no longer apply Nyx's passive to disarm enemies hit with Absorb.

Wow. They actually coded her passive into each of her abilities, and still call it a passive.

[taiiat]

On 7/10/2017 at 5:44 PM, Archwizard said:

While I understand why Harrow is locked out of non-movement actions while channeling Thurible - in order to remove incentive from spending long periods channeling all of your energy into one skill, thereby adding a challenge into your energy efficiency - I think he could at least stand to have, say, stagger protection while channeling it, or perhaps a stun on enemies who get too close as he whips a heavy flail around, since he has no other means to defend himself.

indeed an immediate first thought when mulling over the Ability - literally the first concern being "wait why doesn't this thing apply Blast Status to anything within a Meter or so of Harrow".

not only does it sound amusing to walk through Enemies and knock them down with it, but it also has practical use for defensive purposes, most definitely.
groan with the force of a thousand suns if 'applies Blast Status' is added as an Augment for it ---___---

[Endless_Destruction]

On 7/9/2017 at 1:40 PM, taiiat said:

while this works, you may have not seen my mentions of that Chroma can be truly flexible (which follows the Chromatic theme) via each Elementally attuning Ability being able to change Elemental separate from each other (as well as mid mission ofc).
it also means every type of Ward doesn't have to be as stupid as Ice Ward to be useful.

 

actually, Ice/Electric are the only ones realistically used - Fire Ward is useless for Chroma himself, as Ice Ward is drastically more EHP. Fire Ward is mostly useless for anyone else because it can only Heal once, and then is just basically 2x Health which isn't particularly useful for... like anyone that isn't another Chroma that could take advantage of the extra Health.
i mean sure, someone could get some benefit if they were relying on Rage and now they have more Health to work with for more Energy before they Heal themselves - but they were surely already far in the positive on their relation. or maybe a Nidus but who are we kidding - Health Max isn't the 'problem' with Nidus, he's already regenning for an effective uh... 2000+/sec. if he dies, Health Max wasn't the problem.

anyways, adjustments to Toxic/Fire Ward i agree with. the big thing is being able to change what Ward you have at any time(stacking any of the Abilities together is looking for trouble though) - that means every Ward doesn't have to be... basically blatantly Overpowered like Ice in order to be considered worth using.

 

hmm, making Vex Armor something Passive.... that could be interesting, though would almost surely necessitate pretty slow growth and only growing so often per second.

Hello, thanks for the reply.

I read the discussion on Chroma further back within this thread, which as best as I can tell was conducted right after Chroma came out. I agree that it might be more fitting for Chroma to be able to shift each elementally dependent power independently of each other.

I'd argue that Fire Chroma is more useful than you say, because any frame that can actually take a hit (quite a few, Inaros, Trinity, Mesa, Nidus, Oberon, Valkyr, Frost, Atlas, are the ones that come to mind at first, though I'm sure there are more) will gladly take the bonus. Still, it isn't nearly as useful as Cold Chroma's armor boost on frames with armor, and on Chroma himself, so I am glad to see you agree with my Ward changes.

The primary reasons I suggested that Vex Armor be a passive instead of an active were the caps on each Scorn and Fury, and how they each just vanish after one minute, and because the popular idea to make Vex Armor a toggle is IMO a poor idea, and because this opens an ability slot to shore up his weakness of needing to take damage to return damage. After some thought, here's the ability I came up with:

Spoiler

Ability: Bloodlust-Chroma roars, attracting the attention of every enemy within a 40m radius to focus their aggression on him. Within a fixed 10m radius, for every enemy killed, Chroma gains 2% health, modifiable with power strength.

The idea is that Chroma can use his built up Vex Armor to go on a rampage, earning back the health he lost by killing enemies. I wanted a mechanism that healed Chroma without overshadowing dedicated healers, and was entirely dependent upon active play to achieve.

A little elaboration on why I believe making Vex Armor a toggle is a poor idea: while good energy management might make it last longer, it doesn't fundamentally change the fact that you are just turning on an ability, and leaving it to run, making it function like a passive for a given time. Also, given that Vex Armor is the reason Chroma is so tanky, if and when the ability runs out, Chroma will be left without defenses, unable to recast, and stripped of Scorn and Fury. At least when it is on a timer, with good energy management you can have Vex Armor back up in a flash. And, given the sheer power of enemy energy draining auras, making Vex Armor a toggle will render Chroma useless against infested, when currently, he functions very well against them.

Also, I would happily take a much, much more slow Vex Armor that goes without limit over the current iteration.

Let me know what you all make of the new ability.

 

Edited July 14, 2017 by Endless_Destruction

[Archwizard]

19 hours ago, taiiat said:

indeed an immediate first thought when mulling over the Ability - literally the first concern being "wait why doesn't this thing apply Blast Status to anything within a Meter or so of Harrow".

not only does it sound amusing to walk through Enemies and knock them down with it, but it also has practical use for defensive purposes, most definitely.
groan with the force of a thousand suns if 'applies Blast Status' is added as an Augment for it ---___---

Even if not Blast status, at least Impact status.

I'll probably add that and stagger resistance to the OP.