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

Archwizard · July 14, 2017

So, I'm writing up the Trinity post in the OP (virtually unchanged from what I previously wrote, but pending further discussion), but it was dawning on me as I was writing it:

The big concern with Energy Vampire is that if it provides Trinity with any less energy, she'll be suffering a loss in favor of providing energy to her allies, thereby leaving her bereft in solo missions. But... what if that was the point?

Bear with me here, and consider:
What if Energy Vampire only provided as much energy to allies as Trinity originally spent or less, but Trinity had an extra way of generating energy for herself? For instance, causing her to periodically generate energy for each victim tethered to her by Link. Then, Energy Vampire could become a means for Trinity to transfer her own energy to her allies (at a personal loss), while also providing a secondary benefit such as CC from the target.
Thus, she still is a supportive frame with enough potential to sustain her healing or at least break even, but only by working harder for it.

Food for thought. I'm still open to further discussion of Blessing in order to give her an emergency tool. I'm presently considering a variation on @Azamagon's suggestion for the ability; not sure I like the idea of her granting a shield though, since I feel that runs counter to giving her healing abilities.

Edited July 15, 2017 by Archwizard

taiiat · July 15, 2017

15 hours ago, Endless_Destruction said:

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.

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.

the ones that really benefit from the increased Health Value though - most of them also can casually Heal themselves, which means their Health Capacity is a non issue because just Heal yourself all the time.
it's more useful than Ice for Warframes that don't have Self Healing and also have low Health Capacity, yes... but if they don't have Self Healing then it still isn't really helping them much.

anyways - giving Chroma more methods of Healing starts to get into territory of 'has no weaknesses' - being able to rotate Elemental Ward to use Fire Ward whenever your Health is low is pretty good already for the type of EHP this Warframe has.

tnccs215 · July 19, 2017

Mh... I thought of what might be a funny way to rebalance the old Trinity: Reverting Blessing's mechanics, while making Trinity's passive be immunity to self damage. Maybe also make it unrecasteable.

This wouldn't fix the EV issue nor the WoL redundancy - which could be fixed by the idea in the OP, ofc - but it sure as hell would let Blessing be what Blessing was meant to be.

Also has developer trolling bonus points.

Also, I honestly think Link should be recasteable. It has a somewhat low base duration, and I see no reason not to be able to sacrifice some remaining duration for the guarantee of not losing the buff.

Edited July 19, 2017 by tnccs215

Archwizard · July 22, 2017

On 7/19/2017 at 2:46 AM, tnccs215 said:

-snip-

It's a cute idea, but her current passive is more fitting for her role on the team. Besides, as long as she has Quick Thinking and Energy Vampire, she has a workaround to the lack of self-damage.

As for Link being recastable, I'm not sure. Bear in mind that the intended penalty of being able to recast a buff to refresh the duration, is that it's less cost-efficient... which is not a terribly high concern for Trinity.

Edited July 22, 2017 by Archwizard

tnccs215 · July 22, 2017

6 hours ago, Archwizard said:

It's a cute idea, but her current passive is more fitting for her role on the team. Besides, as long as she has Quick Thinking and Energy Vampire, she has a workaround to the lack of self-damage.

Mh, well, only partially, if at all. The Blessing-induced effective immunity was dependent on the ability to control damage taken: when to take it, and how much to take. The existence of Quick-Thinking and Energy Vampire no doubt potentially allows Blessing to still give the 99.9% Damage Reduction - however, seeing that this can only happen when taking enemies damage, it will be nigh-impossible to ensure: It is simply too unreliable. And the difficulty of doing it increases even more when the Trinity is also tasked with ensuring that her allies aren't being killed (which is pretty much all the time she's in a squad.

Biggest issue I can see is a potential coordination between a Trinity and a non Trinity frame - in which the non-Trin uses the usual Glaive+Quickthinking exploit and the Trinity follows with Blessing. However, this level of coordination is extremely hard by itself, and downright impossible on pug missions.

Plus, why not having both passives? She wouldn't be the only with more than one.

9 hours ago, Archwizard said:

As for Link being recastable, I'm not sure. Bear in mind that the intended penalty of being able to recast a buff to refresh the duration, is that it's less cost-efficient... which is not a terribly high concern for Trinity.

I cannot argue with that, to be completely honest.

Azamagon · July 22, 2017

I'm just gonna chime in with some more ideas for Trinity (dunno if I'm repeating myself here, heh):

WoL, EV and Link
All these 3 abilities could maybe be castable on the move and/or while in midair?
Link could maybe get some more duration?
And (due to the suggested changes to EV below) maybe the suggestion to store Tenno damage would not be necessary (it'd actually be counterproductive for the below EV-suggestion)

Energy Vampire
Revamped:
Cast on an enemy to debuff it with EV. As the target is affected, all that could happen is that it is stunned for as long as the duration is up. Damage, if any, is unimportant. It could probably do something else to the target while it's active (like become more vulnerable to attacks?), but that's not the most important part of its revamp...

... HOWEVER, killing a target affected with EV is what matters for Trin and her team: If an enemy is killed while EV is still on it, Trinity gains a stack of Energy Aura. Energy Aura grants 2 energy per second (amount affected by Power Strength) to her and allies that are within X radius of her (affected by Power Radius) for Y seconds (affected by Power Duration). The Energy Aura can stack up to 3 times, and refreshing it refreshes all the stacks.

Augment could possibly remain unchanged?
Base energycost for EV could, if necessary, be reduced.

The point of these changes are intended to do the following things:
1) To reduce the need to spam the ability constantly. By making it grant energy as a form of regen over a duration, you only need to refresh it occassionally. This means that even if you are built as an Energy-supporting Trinity, you are still allowed to do other stuff than just spam the 2-button over and over.
2) To reduce the extreme energyburstiness it currently provides.
3) To make sure that none of the Power-stats are considered beneficial if it is kept low (like Duration is right now for the current EV-mechanics)
4) The healthscaling damage on WoL keeps some synergy between the two abilities, as WoL helps killing your target, so that EV can keep providing its energy, no matter the enemy levels. Only problem would be on bosses and such, but there its regular debuff (which, as mentioned, could be a plain damage-amp) would be helpful regardless.

Thoughts?

Archwizard · July 23, 2017

13 hours ago, Azamagon said:

Cast on an enemy to debuff it with EV. As the target is affected, all that could happen is that it is stunned for as long as the duration is up. Damage, if any, is unimportant. It could probably do something else to the target while it's active (like become more vulnerable to attacks?), but that's not the most important part of its revamp...

... HOWEVER, killing a target affected with EV is what matters for Trin and her team: If an enemy is killed while EV is still on it, Trinity gains a stack of Energy Aura. Energy Aura grants 2 energy per second (amount affected by Power Strength) to her and allies that are within X radius of her (affected by Power Radius) for Y seconds (affected by Power Duration). The Energy Aura can stack up to 3 times, and refreshing it refreshes all the stacks.

Honestly, I worry that that is far too heavy of a penalty to her, especially with the need to stack it. While it does weaken lootcaves by virtue of minimizing the energy gained, unless you're using a max Power Strength build, even with max stacks the energy isn't worthwhile to sustain her own healing and mitigation - the buffs would need to last at least 25 seconds just to sustain the cost of stacking it. It basically makes her only slightly better at energy generation than Limbo or Octavia.

Azamagon · July 23, 2017

5 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Honestly, I worry that that is far too heavy of a penalty to her, especially with the need to stack it. While it does weaken lootcaves by virtue of minimizing the energy gained, unless you're using a max Power Strength build, even with max stacks the energy isn't worthwhile to sustain her own healing and mitigation - the buffs would need to last at least 25 seconds just to sustain the cost of stacking it. It basically makes her only slightly better at energy generation than Limbo or Octavia.

Well, the numbers weren't the most important part, the mechanic was.

*shrug* Just an idea after all :)

Endless_Destruction · July 24, 2017

On 7/15/2017 at 2:48 AM, taiiat said:

anyways - giving Chroma more methods of Healing starts to get into territory of 'has no weaknesses' - being able to rotate Elemental Ward to use Fire Ward whenever your Health is low is pretty good already for the type of EHP this Warframe has.

I disagree that this would make Chroma OP, more powerful though for sure. The thing is, Chroma is best used with max strength and duration as high as possible, and that completely screws over efficiency and range, meaning that you would have to get really up close and personal for the healing to take effect. Switching wards is great, but I imagined that only being possible whenever the current ward's duration expired. A more reliable method of healing was my goal, one integrated within the frame's kit. Besides, Chroma will always, always have the weakness of needing to take damage to get Vex Armor up, which can prove fatal when even a single shot means instant death when Vex Armor isn't as high as it should be. Sure, under my system Vex Armor is permanently up, but it cannot improve without taking further damage, else the weakness will reappear, with Chroma's damage reduction not keeping pace with the enemy's damage. The weakness is still there, but the boring timer gameplay is taken away, which was my goal.

GOLANX · July 24, 2017

Chesea Kubrow already has a disarm, why replaces retrieve with another disarm? an AI buff could make retrieve more useful even with vacuum on warframes as the kubrow has a long leash, allow retrieve to have a container busting aura and vacum of about 2 meters and the kubrow to retarget containers as soon as the first is poped, also containers should have the same priority as enemies, more or less based on relative position of maul or bite.

the efficiency fix seems a lot like a nerf just for the ability to stack maxed streamline and fleeting expertise without overkill.

a reason to raid the siderooms with the lockers and crates is a plus, i also think they should be stronger safe places to cool off and get your bearings, like if your hiding in the corpus closet the corpus will see the room as invisible and wont aproach it for any particular reason until the door is opened, i also think those rooms should get a guaranteed energy orb out of the lockers or containers. sahasa kubrow should even be able to get a dig in.

equinox: duality clones should not get increased damage but put all that in duration, the clone can use and maintain all of the abilities of its form, recasting metamorphosis while the clone is still alive switches you to the clone and its current health pool.

Mend still has incredible overheal potential, also the player would be encouraged to use maim for generating its health pool and then switch forms to place mend for the healing. Mend needs to have an effect while channeling and not just build up on the damage you do.

i also think equinoxes day form could sacrifice health to get more power perhaps provoke additionally uses health to increase her weapon damage or maim could afflict equinox with a slash proc either way equniox players get high damage day phases and will want to switch to night to heal up (this would come with corresponding buffs), additionally spending more time in night phase will reduce the amount of self damage inflicted in day phase and can apply more lasting buffs to defense, this way players will want to spend some time in night phase and not just switch to night phase to cast mend, then swap back for powerful maim provoke combo.

Nekros:

soul punch adds that enemy to the soul cashe regardless if he is killed or not, but can only be used on that target once.

if you want to give nekros the full 9 yards of rework however can we do zombies like the prime trailer instead of using dead enemies to reanimate with full life, you reanimate them to undead status, lack of and need for brains included. that would also help differentiate with inaros as the mummy would get a single more competent companion to attack while inaros tanks while Nekros isnt necessarily seen through his hoard of zombies, only the sickly stench of zombie, and the shadow of a warframe that comes out to kill you.

Trinity:

well of life sounds a lot like energy vampire for health, i like it, i would think the augment should be more like soul survivor though, cast on ally for instant revive. also the amount healed should be based on the amount of health on the target and has no on death bonuses except maybe a health orb.

energy vampire having the same effect as old well of life makes a lot of sense, though i feel like there should be an additional team bonus if trinity damages or kills the target, maybe it drops an energy orb idk. reread your thought on this one no i dont think energy vampire should deal damage i think the effect on the enemy itself should be exactly the same mechanic as well of life, the enemy is an energy pinata with a full heal on cast damage mitigation buff, the allure of energy pinata will be more than enough power for this ability, and adds the long needed interactivity, + benefits for duration.

your bless rework sounds a lot like team iron skin, nezha can do this a bit with his augment but that costs him a lot of energy, a full team iron-skinned with 1 ability cast seems to have too much potential to be OP. your gonna have to rethink this one, part of me is thinking a buff to damage or mobility i mean Trinity is about 3 pools of something, and she has little to do with shields without ev augment, maybe overshields but again what to do about ev augment... maybe ev augment does a powerstrength buff for damage dealt to target.

Zephyr:

imo she is redundant with parkour 2.0 even with a tailwind divebomb merge, my plan on her is that she augments parkour 2.0 instead of trying to replace it. she not only needs to be airborn she needs to be precise while doing it, and have full mothion in the air:

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/798649-my-ideas-on-a-zephyr-rework/

also i dont think you have updated your turbulance in a while it doesnt work like that anymore but redirecting instead of being harmless but towards enemies sounds fun, maybe as an augment.

Mag:

i like disarming pull more than disarming magnetize your pull buff is liked without question. however i think weapons should persist on the ground and be usable by another ability probably crush, i really want to see mag do a Magneto.

id also add that enemies affected by magnetic proc take extra damage from crush and get an extra pull from magnetize.

Nyx:

your psychic bolts buff seems like more of a nerf, nyx is all about crowd control, any strong build for her has negative power strength, assimilate actively encourages negative power strength. for your psychic bolts to work the rest of her abilities would need to be buffed by power strength and thats a tall order. i like the idea of adding a bane effect to enemies so they do more damage to each other with chaos and mind control, mind freak would instead increase protection stats. that still leaves absorb where any amount of power strength could leave Nyx without an energy pool in higher level missions. removing the energy cost for damage absorbed sounds nice but can we convince DE to do it. i like your nyx passive, her CC abilities allow her to fight in 10 meters regardless of the level of content.

Rhino:

i would add that roar gets increased damage buff based on the amount of damage rhino takes in the first 3 seconds like iron skin. there would not be invincibility like iron skin though and iron skin would negate this period, giving some credence to not always keeping iron skin up for a higher risk reward setup.

Titania:

i would prefer moving tribute to #1 and buffing spellbound with greater rang and making it #2

Titania needs more ability synergy i might add

Valkyr:

would hysteria still heal you per strike? sounds like a bad combo for a vicious cycle of valkyr rushing getting damaged needing to stay in hysteria to get the heals while she takes even more damage... you see where im going with this? and if the Hysteria DOT doesn't work with rage she will be effectively spayed.

warcry buff makes sense till you realize that it would now have a more negative impact on hysteria as she is no longer invulnerable, with current valkyr i would love it along with a cost reduction cause 75 energy is too much if i have dropped out of hysteria.

Volt:

ME:A shock should detonate currently active status procs on the target too for extra damage XD

love the rest of volt buffs.. passive still needs a tweak though.

taiiat · July 24, 2017

14 hours ago, Endless_Destruction said:

Switching wards is great, but I imagined that only being possible whenever the current ward's duration expired.

that flexibility would be the excellent part of it though - able to change Wards whenever you need to (for further Energy Cost ofcourse). then Ward isn't just a boring Timer, you're micromanaging which benefits are most suited at any current time. even possibly changing your Ward very often since in Warframe situations change... very often.

Archwizard · July 24, 2017

10 hours ago, GOLANX said:

Chesea Kubrow already has a disarm, why replaces retrieve with another disarm? an AI buff could make retrieve more useful even with vacuum on warframes as the kubrow has a long leash, allow retrieve to have a container busting aura and vacum of about 2 meters and the kubrow to retarget containers as soon as the first is poped, also containers should have the same priority as enemies, more or less based on relative position of maul or bite.

Woops, don't even know how long that's been there, weird.

Honestly, if universal vacuum gets implemented, Retrieve in itself will be an entirely different can of worms. Considering the kubrow can move independently of you but A) loses attack capabilities while carrying and B) can only be in one place at a time, the argument could be made to just... leave Retrieve alone.

10 hours ago, GOLANX said:

the efficiency fix seems a lot like a nerf just for the ability to stack maxed streamline and fleeting expertise without overkill.

Actually it was written to discourage loot-caving and encourage increasing your maximum energy pool.

10 hours ago, GOLANX said:

your bless rework sounds a lot like team iron skin, nezha can do this a bit with his augment but that costs him a lot of energy, a full team iron-skinned with 1 ability cast seems to have too much potential to be OP. your gonna have to rethink this one,

Yeah... personally I'm on the fence about it as well, since I feel like it defeats the point of focusing on her healing if the party is just going to spam Iron Skin. The important part of the ability was for her to give a brief period of invulnerability so allies can take in the healing, while also providing a tool against heavy hits she sees coming; the worry is just that players may simply choose to build negative duration to spam the ability as often as possible for the mitigation.

Perhaps I may simply go with having Blessing give a diminishing mitigation over that period, so that you need Duration to slow the diminishing rate as much as possible.

10 hours ago, GOLANX said:

Zephyr:

Funnily enough, Zephyr is actually the next frame I'm considering reworking. As much fun as the Tornado I mention in the OP would be, Titania has shown that Archwing mechanics are a total possibility, so just going to Volkovyi's suggestion for a Tornado that allows her to fly in the eye of it is possible by the current design philosophy.

10 hours ago, GOLANX said:

your psychic bolts buff seems like more of a nerf, nyx is all about crowd control, any strong build for her has negative power strength, assimilate actively encourages negative power strength.

I didn't actually anything to it that encourages Power Strength (the Slash damage that scales with Power Strength is literally the same as it has now, while the impact of hitting a wall would be unaffected by Strength as in Snow Globe).

Wait, seriously? I thought Power Strength increased the efficiency of Absorb by increasing the damage threshold before it consumed extra energy. Is that not how it works? Or are you simply stating that because she wants to use Overextended and avoids Blind Rage/Transient Fortitude like the plague?

10 hours ago, GOLANX said:

i would prefer moving tribute to #1 and buffing spellbound with greater rang and making it #2

Also possible.

10 hours ago, GOLANX said:

would hysteria still heal you per strike? sounds like a bad combo for a vicious cycle of valkyr rushing getting damaged needing to stay in hysteria to get the heals while she takes even more damage... you see where im going with this? and if the Hysteria DOT doesn't work with rage she will be effectively spayed.

The thing is, Valkyr is a berserker - she should be encouraged to attack as much as possible while in Hysteria. Right now, the current system just encourages tapping Hysteria to revive teammates and then leaping away before you deactivate it.

GOLANX · July 24, 2017

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

Woops, don't even know how long that's been there, weird.

Honestly, if universal vacuum gets implemented, Retrieve in itself will be an entirely different can of worms. Considering the kubrow can move independently of you but A) loses attack capabilities while carrying and B) can only be in one place at a time, the argument could be made to just... leave Retrieve alone.

Chesea kubrow doesn't have to carry loot anymore, its yours the moment the doggo steps over it, and thus can still attack enemies just fine, the problem with chesea kubrow is not that it cant fight its that it cant loot, it tends to wait until the room is clear, and its ability to break open containers is inconsistent, ive seen my kubrow try 5 times to open a container with no succsess thats why i want an AOE canister break and to design the AI to treat loot like enemies, this way the dog will fight and loot.

Actually it was written to discourage loot-caving and encourage increasing your maximum energy pool.

encourage me to increase my max energy pool and no loot caving eh? so your efficiency nerf is tied into getting energy from containers and lockers, problem is it takes 2 seconds to loot a locker or break a canister more if we have to go out of our way to do it and warframe is a fast paced game over the course of a game not looting everything can save you a lot of time, you can run the same mission a coupple of times, so the gain from looting a closet has to outweigh the rewards of running the mission twice, a tall order to say the least. also say you run a survival mission with the intent on going as long as possible, you will find that corpus give a lot more than grinner and you also have the same problems as the old Volt discharge once you've looted an area you'll have a harder time getting energy if you have to return to that area.

Yeah... personally I'm on the fence about it as well, since I feel like it defeats the point of focusing on her healing if the party is just going to spam Iron Skin. The important part of the ability was for her to give a brief period of invulnerability so allies can take in the healing, while also providing a tool against heavy hits she sees coming; the worry is just that players may simply choose to build negative duration to spam the ability as often as possible for the mitigation.

negative duration would hurt the rest of her kit if we modify EV to be like WOL, a shorter duration on the pinata would be a bad move if you want to keep energy up. i dont play trinity enough to give you a good idea on what to do with blessing, all i can think of is Trinity is about 3s so thats health and energy, do we want to make blessing about shields (overshields)? or maybe damage, Mitigation is certainly one way but i would find it boring, maybe bless could give allies overshields and status resistance or immunity with a cleanse, its a nice panic button without weakness, you could add in some synergy with the ability to increase recieved healing or potentially getting energy from EV if your in the area (somebody should have to work for that energy and i have no problem with trinity having to run a second ability to get her old EV)

Perhaps I may simply go with having Blessing give a diminishing mitigation over that period, so that you need Duration to slow the diminishing rate as much as possible.

Funnily enough, Zephyr is actually the next frame I'm considering reworking. As much fun as the Tornado I mention in the OP would be, Titania has shown that Archwing mechanics are a total possibility, so just going to Volkovyi's suggestion for a Tornado that allows her to fly in the eye of it is possible by the current design philosophy.

we also know that arching mechanics don't translate so well, and we also don't need another sandstorm imo she should not get an exaulted type archwing or again sandstorm, she should be able to stay in the air indefinitely and fight however she likes from the skies, a sniper rifle should be viable airborn with zephyr, and aviator should be a no brainier defensive mod for her. if you want to use my thrusters concept feel free, your thread probably gets way more attention than mine

I didn't actually anything to it that encourages Power Strength (the Slash damage that scales with Power Strength is literally the same as it has now, while the impact of hitting a wall would be unaffected by Strength as in Snow Globe).

Marking mode was a serious detriment to ash not that he didnt need the nerf but please replicating that mechanic has me cringeing especially for a ability with low damage it doesnt even have a guaranteed radiation proc just a % chance.. nowhere near strong enough to justify using it over chaos even if every bolt procced radiation and did 3X the damage it does now. although psychic bolts might be fun if they buffed the mind controlled minion and did an extra number on chaosed targets like buffing their damage.

Wait, seriously? I thought Power Strength increased the efficiency of Absorb by increasing the damage threshold before it consumed extra energy. Is that not how it works? Or are you simply stating that because she wants to use Overextended and avoids Blind Rage/Transient Fortitude like the plague?

oh yeah Nyx is one of my faves for a long time, first time i took her to sortie and was one of my first sorties too, i casted absorb with a high energy pool in an area with a lot of enemies thinking hey i can clean up, my energy was gone in seconds and i barely scratched them (and that was just 100% power strength), even after i got overextended it was months before i used the ability again, with negative power strength tier 3 sorties cant bring Nyx's energy pool down so yeah avoid power strength like the plague

Also possible.

The thing is, Valkyr is a berserker - she should be encouraged to attack as much as possible while in Hysteria. Right now, the current system just encourages tapping Hysteria to revive teammates and then leaping away before you deactivate it.

people do that? why?!?!?!? Hysteria has great self healing potential and is probably imo the single most Powerful melee in the game, ive one shoted lvl 100 enemies with it, i don't mind the Hysteria energy cost, rage makes it incredibly easy to gain back and high armor modifiers give her the ability to survive while doing this. just try to make sure everything is dead before it ends or you find a safe place, turn it off if you have a quiet moment. using hysteria just for temporary invincibility to me is like using excal exaulted blade only for melee range attacks and not slashing wildly (because there is every advantage to slashing wildly and none to holding back). or a molecular prime that only slows enemies and doesnt prime them, Hysterias invincibility is half the ability and not even the good part. if anything i turn off hysteria to make the game more challenging, and i still run headlong and fist first into the nearest pack of enemies i see.

leojst · July 26, 2017

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

(and of course, Corrupted mods would actually have trade-offs rather than double-dipping in benefits).

first off i need to see a corrupted mod with no pit falls that would be a good day in my book unless you mean nightmare mods then just get your facts in line. and second the "vision" you are talking about i have no clue what you see but i dont care what you see because when they started they said the vision is a team based game. they said it off the bat and have showed that they mean it. every frame was built with the team in mind not just one person trying to solo. warframes are living weapons so even with out weapons their powers are part of them and should not be considered a "gimmicks" but tools. third all the gameplay changes that the devs added for people saying the same things your saying just to be discredited and only looking at the the thing they would change to fit the way they would like to play is sad that people would not do homework before flapping your gums

Archwizard · July 26, 2017

On 7/25/2017 at 10:16 PM, leojst said:

first off i need to see a corrupted mod with no pit falls that would be a good day in my book

Let's take a small, but very important example of what I meant by that line:

As presently designed, Energy Vampire always emits exactly 4 pulses of energy spread out over its entire duration, regardless of the length of its effect. Not only does a positive Duration serve no benefit to Energy Vampire as a result (because it does not increase the number of pulses), but an extended Duration actually has a negative impact on the energy-per-second returned by means of spreading out those 4 pulses, without affecting the actual energy gain per-cast; while you can simply kill the target to accelerate the effect, this means the delay between casts is affected by your Time-To-Kill against the target, which increases with level.
Oh, and limit 1 per Trinity -- you can't use it again while it's active.
Thus, mods that reduce Duration, like Fleeting Expertise and Transient Fortitude, are godsends for Energy Vampire builds, since they can cause Energy Vampire to grant nearly double its benefits for less than half the cost in 1/8^th of the time -- often less time than it would take to kill the target at mid-level or higher, taking animation time into consideration. It also means a potential to cast it 8 times as often, and since it guarantees more energy than it costs, that potential is easily attainable.
While this does negatively impact the other three abilities in Trinity's arsenal in most builds, Energy Vampire single-handedly removes the concept of an energy economy and enables lootcave behaviors (spamming instant abilities like Radial Javelin, near-instantly replenishing energy gauges between casts of toggles like Peacemaker, or counteracting a low duration on a buff by means of spam) while Blessing's infinite-healing ability is unaffected by Duration, so the current "meta" for Trinity is exactly this low-Duration max-everything-else build.

Go ahead and loiter around Recruiting chat for 10 minutes, see how many times "have EV" or "LF EV" pop up. I guarantee you they expect you to have a minimal Duration.

Before you jump to "Well that's just min-maxing," no, it isn't. Standard min-maxing runs on the principle that you choose to trade off a stat that has little value to the way you choose to use your frame. The way EV is made, Duration is actively detrimental; even if you use a build with no Corrupted mods, and throw on a Primed Continuity, EV is getting worse while the other three skills get stronger. It's designed to encourage you to reduce her stats, in order to make it stronger.
It's the difference between giving up peanut butter for Lent, and giving up peanut butter because you're deathly allergic to it.

Historically, abilities such as Miasma and Renewal have faced similar fates, reducing Duration to maximize their effects due to complications within their formulae. In fact, generally, Duration ends up getting the brunt of this as a stat simply because of three words: "Ability In Use."
For specifics to these examples, read the spoiler.

Spoiler

Prior to Saryn's rework in Update 17.10 (since time before Corrupted mods), Miasma always had a guaranteed initial "extra" tick that wasn't affected by Duration, which cloned the damage of a single tick from the end segment that was affected by Duration. Reducing the Duration compressed the total damage of the Duration-affected segment into fewer ticks, and thus increased the damage of a single tick to keep the same damage in that segment... before cascading over to the initial tick. As a result of this formula, Miasma's total damage nearly doubled when reduced to only 2 ticks.
Fleeting Expertise not only made it possible to reduce the number of ticks, but simultaneously reduced its cost.
At one point this build was so common that, by DE's own statistics, Miasma was the second-most cast ability in the game as a result, only behind Desecrate.

Prior to Oberon's rework in Update 20.3, Renewal was affected inversely by Duration, compressing its effects over a shorter uptime as Duration increased in order to make its healing "burstier". When released, it was bugged to heal players through their bleedout so long as it was active, which encouraged a low Duration build until it was hotfixed and, later, inspired it gaining an extension to bleedout during his first rework. Problem was, maximizing the bleedout buff required a high Duration, which paradoxically minimized the uptime of Renewal, thus preventing you from ever gaining both benefits at once.

If any of that sounds to you like oversight or perhaps odd, overcomplicated, counterproductive, or even nightmarish design that you can't imagine any other sane developer allowing to slip into their game, then congratulations! You now understand why this thread exists, and in particular, that line you quoted.

So to use your own words,

On 7/25/2017 at 10:16 PM, leojst said:

do homework before flapping your gums

Edited July 27, 2017 by Archwizard

taiiat · July 27, 2017

23 hours ago, leojst said:

first off i need to see a corrupted mod with no pit falls

how are you not aware of this? it's extremely common and popular for Players to disregard one Ability Stat and get free everything else. thesedays, Efficiency being that forgotten Stat since it's the easiest to use approved exploits to circumvent.

and.... for every Ability that does have all Ability Stats to consider to make Players actually think a little bit, there's 5 that get free upgrades from Corrupted Mods.

lastly ofcourse, don't even bring up the Corrupted Rate of Fire Mods.... those are a right joke. if you don't know why, then you probably shouldn't be saying the things you are.

.....

Archwizard · July 28, 2017

So, I'd like to start some discussion of Zephyr today.

She's one of the top Warframes in need of a rework, in part due to sharing many of the same issues as Hydroid - flat damage, movement abilities outdated by Parkour 2.0, and an RNG-affected CC ultimate that makes enemies harder to target. The only reason she isn't as high on the rework list as Hydroid is presently, is due to her Turbulence ability actually being a functional and valued support tool for many parties, particularly on Corpus missions.

Part of the goal behind the design for Zephyr as implemented is to be an air support-style Warframe. Her passive and first ability grant her mobility in the air, her third ability increases her defense at range, her ultimate helplessly renders enemies airborne with her and her second ability provides her with a unique advantage against enemies beneath her. However, this design was never fully functional due to the limited space within tilesets, as well as the issues implementing Zephyr as mentioned above.

I'd like to take some time to get back to roots and look into Volkovyi's designs for Zephyr. His concept included the ability to render Zephyr airborne indefinitely; while she was implemented in a time when complete freedom of mobility was frowned upon due to the limitations of tileset design, Parkour 2.0 and Wukong have each since shown a new direction in this regard for DE. I am personally of the mind that in spite of the limitations of her design in executing the air support niche, it is not an entirely improbable niche to fulfill as seen with Titania, particularly with the upcoming open world tilesets.

So, some ideas, with inspiration from today's devstream:

Tail Wind is rolled into her Passive: Zephyr has indefinite bullet jumping and 10x increased aimglide, and leaves behind trails of slicing winds for a brief period after she bullet jumps.
New first ability: Zephyr summons a Bird of Prey with limited health that will rest on her shoulder. The Bird of Prey will seek enemies who Zephyr attacks and continuously deal physical damage and Blind.
Dive Bomb replaced: Zephyr fires a traveling gust of wind along the ground in a line in front of herself (similar to Condemn) that deals Impact damage and renders enemies helplessly airborne for a period, similarly to Rhino Stomp. When the effect ends, affected enemies are pushed back.
Turbulence unchanged.
Tornado reworked: Zephyr summons a funnel of wind in a cylinder around herself. While channeling this effect, Zephyr is capable of slow flight with Archwing controls, and enemies who contact the cylinder will be sucked into the vortex and held there until the ability is released. Allied projectiles fired into the Tornado will be redirected to enemies caught within; while Turbulence is active, hostile projectiles will also be deflected in the same way. Performing a melee attack will break Zephyr out of Tornado, but increase the attack's damage and treat it as an aerial attack.

And yes, I'm still thinking about reworking the ultimate for Ember so we don't have two "birds of prey" floating around, I'm just concerned about World on Fire being incredibly passive (and counterintuitive to most of her kit) in its current design. Almost tempted to say "I give up" and just have WoF prevent sprinting while active to discourage keeping it up 90% of the time in Exterminates, but that won't stop people from AFKing on the cryopod.

Edited July 29, 2017 by Archwizard

tnccs215 · July 29, 2017

15 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Tail Wind is rolled into her Passive: Zephyr has indefinite bullet jumping and 10x increased aimglide, and leaves behind trails of slicing winds for a brief period after she bullet jumps.

Haven't seen the devstream, but I literally smiled when I read this. I quite enjoy the somewhat new approach to Warframe design, in which the passive powers are a fundamental part of their playstyle - making each frame differ from each other more than simply their powers, but also their "feeling" - and have, ever since sometime ago, been thinking that it's not divebomb that should be fused with tailwind, but tailwind that should become her passive: a unique, faster bullet jump, with an animation similar to the current tailwind one (but more refined added) and unlimited uses in addition to longer aim glide and her already present reduced gravity.

Though, for what's worth, I also think that making her bullet jump both by default longer, but also interruptible by stopping to press the buttons, would had another layer of movment control and distinction to her. That is, instead of her bullet jump having a set reach like everyone else's, you can stop preemptively by simply releasing the controls - and if you don't, it can also keep going on for longer than other bullet jumps.

I mean, Tail Wind and Bullet Jump are pretty much redundant, and Zephyr being so reliant on it, it makes sense for it to be her passive - much like Limbo is reliant on dimension change.

15 hours ago, Archwizard said:

New first ability: Zephyr summons a Bird of Prey with limited health that will rest on her shoulder. The Bird of Prey will seek enemies who Zephyr attacks and continuously deal physical damage and Blind.

Dive Bomb replaced: Zephyr fires a traveling gust of wind along the ground in a line in front of herself (similar to Condemn) that deals Impact damage and renders enemies helplessly airborne for a period, similarly to Rhino Stomp. When the effect ends, affected enemies are pushed back.

Possibility of several commands through a quiver-like system? Could be a fun power. at the very worst gimmicky, but fun.

However, personally, I really think Dive bomb should both stay and be moved to first ability. With Titania around, distinctions should exist between her and Zephyr - they are, otherwise, simply redundant - and after reading several rework threads and reviews by "Zephyr mains", I end up agreeing with most of them: where Titania has air control, like an helicopter or an insect, Zephyr has speed, like an airplane or a hawk. Dive Bomb is a somewhat important aspect of all these reworks, and I can see why - it is another tool of movement, more suicidal and controllable than simply using tailwind.

Plus, peregrine falcons. They literally dive bomb to catch their pray. If this power isn't thematically fit, I don't know what is (yes, theme shouldn't encumber playability, but if it fits and augments it, then it should very well stay).

With that in mind, I personally think Dive Bomb should be rolled to her first ability, holding its activation button would make a circle appear around the area Zephyr would hit, and moving the camera would move this zone, allowing an additional layer of control. Its base values should also be somewhat increased, and impact damage based on the current health of enemies hit added.

With dive bomb as her 1, her second ability could either be replaced by the companion one, or the localized, long range CC you proposed to replace Dive Bomb, and I am personally more inclined to the first one, due to the redundancy, however limited, that would exist between Dive Bomb and the power.

15 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Tornado reworked: Zephyr summons a funnel of wind in a cylinder around herself. While channeling this effect, Zephyr is capable of slow flight with Archwing controls, and enemies who contact the cylinder will be sucked into the vortex and held there until the ability is released. Allied projectiles fired into the Tornado will be redirected to enemies caught within; while Turbulence is active, hostile projectiles will also be deflected in the same way. Performing a melee attack will break Zephyr out of Tornado, but increase the attack's damage and treat it as an aerial attack.

I do enjoy the concept behind this: slowed down air movement. It would serve more as a helper for pontual air support than as a basis to her movement paradigm: her air transversal would be encouraged to be made through bulletjumping/tailwinding, but she would be able to maintain herself as an air support for more than a bit.

However, I also think that this power should work less as a "slow Archwing", and more as a "highly controllable aim-glide active by default": she isn't locked out of ground movement while channeling this ability, but as soon as she stops her bullet jump, she will slowly come to stop mid-air, allowing her slow movement.

The playstyle would be something like this: you are on an excavation mission, on the ground defending an excavator, and with her ultimate active. Suddenly, support is necessary across the tile: tailwind up, than forward toward the excavator, and give air support. Done that, and severe CC being needed on the original excavator, you tailwind back above it, and use a directed Dive bomb to flatten the enemies and ground yourself.

That is my idea for her, focused on pontual air support, and high movement for perfect localization - Titania might be an amazing air support, but she is somewhat cumbersome to move. Zephyr would not be: she would be like a lightning fast bolt, with occasional stops to support. More than being air support, she is always at the right place, on the right time.

I noticed your concept seems to diver a bit from this - more on the lines of a constant air support, that keeps distance and ranged control over close encounters, but seeing that titania kinda already does that, that Zephyr players are themselves used to alternate between long range attacks and close range CC and attacks at the press of a few buttons (and as someone who's been playing with her a bit lately, I can attest thats actually pretty fun), and that birds of Prey hunt by getting close and fast, I personally think that concept should be kept as is and improved.

Edited July 29, 2017 by tnccs215

GOLANX · July 29, 2017

i don't think DE would like the idea of adding that many new passives to a warframe making infinite bullet jumps tailwinds for no cost, and innate patagium, Steve wouldn't be able to sleep at night with a passive that powerful. and how about for us? that innate tailwind would likely get its damage nerfed and probably cant be modded for, i dont think passives can be modded for, so we wouldn't like it either in the end as it would appear more as a gimmick, and a gimmick that our lovely titania has that also leaves trampolines allies can use, minus infinite air part which she has covered with her 4.

IMO zephyr should be the frame that zips around the planes of eidelon matching archwing players without using her own archwing but i think the better way of approaching it is building a augment Parkour ability. this ability would give zephyr tailwind on bullet jump, divebomb on melee slams, innate patagium, infinite jumping, air dashing in any direction infinitely. all for energy costs applied per parkour manuever like how nekros only uses energy when a body is around to desecrate. this way steve can sleep at night with the idea that these abilities cost energy, and we like it because we can still mod for them. want to increase the amount of innate patagium, narow minded, increase the AOE of divebomb and tailwind? overextended, stay in the air forever with whatever you want? Fleeting expertise. this ability i call thrusters.

we also have to keep in mind how powerful turbulence is when considering giving zephyr more uptime, currently she is almost invincible to ranged attacks while the ability is active. i believe turbulence should be made a toggle ability, this prevents zephyr from generating energy while being airborne and thus unmelee able while also being immune to ranged weapons. this might give zephyr players some critical decisions when building, add blind rage for more power in tailwind and divebomb, that will make it harder to maintain the energy pool with turbulance on. maybe you add patagium to your build so you dont have to rely on the patagium you get from the ability which costs energy. maybe you add a bullet jump mod so you can go farther on a single tailwind while also adding an extra kick to the ability. its useful if your bullet jumping is part of your core damage mechanics.

i think your on the right track with your first ability though, but might i suggest it be a transform sentinel ability, or if you don't have a sentinel equipped it will give you one. this way your bird gets to use all or your sentinel mods and precepts, run along the ground vacuuming everything that drops from enemies you killed while airborn, attacking enemies with its weapon that you can mod for (potentially adding that precept with the ability). i also think the bird should mark targets for your airborne attacks, improving your accuracy while airborn cause its gonna suck perhaps its going to be a slight bullet attracter effect like the scourge minus the preference for headshots. i have a preference for the augment allowing your bird to lift enemies off the ground so you can more easily tailwind into them or air melee them.

as for her 4 well thrusters i feel gives her enough airborne time and we don't need a mini titania, the goal is that zephyr has to keep moving jumping and aimgliding. what is wrong with tornado is 2 things: A zephyr is not airborne enough she has to land too often, B enemies get flattened against the ceiling or shoot out the top, ive covered her airborn nature so as for enemy control im thinking something along the lines of the active zenurik ability or bastile, the tornadoes will travel around with zephyr and are locked to within a certain distance around her, tornadoes actively look for enemies to pick up, enemies affected get yanked up but will settle in the middle of the tornado without much vertical movement while horizontal movement is dictated by the tornadoes flight patterns, unlike bastile or zenurik, enemies will spin like a top in the tornado preventing any major attempt to hit a specific body part, however the violent twisting magnifies the damage of melee attacks and gives them innate slash procs. furthermore if zephyr tailwinds into the enemy in the tornado she will remove that enemy from the tornado, and potentially use them either by performing an awesome airborne finisher only zephyr could do, comboing that finisher into a divebomb for extra damage to ground targets, or throwing said enemy in any given direction for all damage even his allies for a nice CC. birds augment i think would also give zephyr this ability.

Archwizard · July 29, 2017

1 hour ago, GOLANX said:

i don't think DE would like the idea of adding that many new passives to a warframe making infinite bullet jumps tailwinds for no cost, and innate patagium,

Sadly... I think you have a point about the passive being somewhat overloaded (even if there are more egregious examples already available to us).

10 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

Possibility of several commands through a quiver-like system? Could be a fun power. at the very worst gimmicky, but fun.

I see what you did there... but I don't think it's entirely necessary for Zephyr to have a full pet-command power. The idea is that the bird of prey would allow her access to a ranged attack at all times, so she's never at a disadvantage while airborne.

10 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

However, personally, I really think Dive bomb should both stay and be moved to first ability.

My problem with this is... I never really saw the point of Dive Bomb. While it is somewhat thematic by means of the example you provided, it's also A) a weakened redundancy of ground slam effects, primarily existing as a means to counter the slowed descents provided by her passive and B) not entirely cohesive to her kit since it also removes her from her element without providing her strong compensation for doing so.

On the other hand... my alternative solution was the same one that has been proposed by players several times, including in this thread: rolling Tail Wind and Dive Bomb into one ability. (Admittedly, retaining this solution would probably be a lot easier to pass on, especially since it means her passive can be reduced to the increased Aim Glide.) The problem remains that Tail Wind is redundant of Parkour maneuvers and doesn't scale particularly well on its own, but at least it would provide her with a means to travel more quickly while channeling the proposed ultimate.
Besides, nothing says we can't simply add more to Tail Wind, like causing each cast to give her an extra aerial jump or increase her velocity for a period or hell, folding in the CC I proposed for the replacement 2.

10 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

I noticed your concept seems to diver a bit from this - more on the lines of a constant air support, that keeps distance and ranged control over close encounters, but seeing that titania kinda already does that, that Zephyr players are themselves used to alternate between long range attacks and close range CC and attacks at the press of a few buttons (and as someone who's been playing with her a bit lately, I can attest thats actually pretty fun), and that birds of Prey hunt by getting close and fast, I personally think that concept should be kept as is and improved.

I don't necessarily agree that she was built for such a close-up playstyle. She has low armor and high shields, a setup that encourages evasion to pace out attacks until her shields can regenerate, rather than tanking direct hits. Turbulence literally provides her with protection for remaining at range and none close-up. Tail Wind's default effect, when not airborne, is an escape mechanism by means of putting her in the air; while it does some damage, it was always incidental to the mobility it provided, especially since you really can't hit enemies most of the time.

I don't disagree that she should have more mobility than Titania, but mobility alone is a weak utility; between her non-Tribute abilities, Titania outclasses Zephyr in terms of crowd control and damage output, which are each more valuable in high-end play.

Edited July 29, 2017 by Archwizard

tnccs215 · July 29, 2017

3 hours ago, GOLANX said:

i don't think DE would like the idea of adding that many new passives to a warframe making infinite bullet jumps tailwinds for no cost, and innate patagium, Steve wouldn't be able to sleep at night with a passive that powerful.

Ehrm... Limbo is literally capable of changing planes of existence by dashing. Nidus has innate health regen and even gets a free pass out of death if he has enough stacks. Harrow theoretically has double the durability of most frames due to his passive. I think Steve will sleep fine, specially since we already have so much movement freedom that giving her more isn't that much of power creep - specially not when it's a fundamental part of her playstyle, and her abilities are balanced around it.

3 hours ago, GOLANX said:

.and how about for us? that innate tailwind would likely get its damage nerfed and probably cant be modded for, i dont think passives can be modded for, so we wouldn't like it either in the end as it would appear more as a gimmick, and a gimmick that our lovely titania has that also leaves trampolines allies can use, minus infinite air part which she has covered with her 4.

Tailwind's damage and CC are downright irrelevant as they are that losing the possibility to mod it is inconsequential. Frankly, downright losing the damage and cc is inconsequential. I don't know one person that even cares about the damage, and I myself had to read it on the wiki to know it existed.

It's reach can be altered by already existent bullet jump mods, and more than that it is substantial by itself. Current tail wind is only marginally better than bullet jumping anyway, even modded, so I don't see how it is a fair ability in the first place.

And you seem to have stepped yourself on a contradiction. First it is overpowered, than it is a useless gimmick? It either is one or the other, it can't be both.

3 hours ago, GOLANX said:

*disregard this my phone doesn't allow me to change it*

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

I see what you did there... but I don't think it's entirely necessary for Zephyr to have a full pet-command power. The idea is that the bird of prey would allow her access to a ranged attack at all times, so she's never at a disadvantage while airborne.

That makes some sense, but I think that at least a "hold 1 to mark target" would be a good idea. No point in just giving her another pet when the ones we have already have issues.

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

My problem with this is... I never really saw the point of Dive Bomb. While it is somewhat thematic by means of the example you provided, it's also A) a weakened redundancy of ground slam effects, primarily existing as a means to counter the slowed descents provided by her passive and B) not entirely cohesive to her kit since it also removes her from her element without providing her strong compensation for doing so.

On the other hand... my alternative solution was the same one that has been proposed by players several times, including in this thread: rolling Tail Wind and Dive Bomb into one ability. (Admittedly, retaining this solution would probably be a lot easier to pass on, especially since it means her passive can be reduced to the increased Aim Glide.)

Well... after being tired of playing around with my usual frames, I spent a while experimenting with zephyr. And while initially I agreed with you, in the end, I ended up thinking that dive bomb not only is a valuable ability, but that it *should* stay separated from the others.

I can perfectly see where you come from, but dive bomb actually seems to contribute a lot to her kit, and synergizes naturally well with her. Truth is, it is substantially more fluid than any form of melee slam, and it is redundant with them only with weapons with large slams - try to use, say, a Nikana, and it's slam is much more worth it. This is secondary, however: Above all, it serves exactly to counter act turbulence's weakness - enemies thrown to the floor cannot harm you.

My desire to keep dive bomb separated from tail wind is born out of the wish to keep player control. Truth is, fusing both powers would obligatorily create the same issues that melee air attacks and ground slams have: use it on too steep an angle, and you go straight down. Use it on a not steep enough one, and you go straight forward. Keeping the powers separated seems fundamental to maintain optimal, directional control, and also allows the "hold to aim" functionality for dive bomb.

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

I don't necessarily agree that she was built for such a close-up playstyle. She has low armor and high shields, a setup that encourages evasion to pace out attacks until her shields can regenerate, rather than tanking direct hits. Turbulence literally provides her with protection for remaining at range and none close-up. Tail Wind's default effect, when not airborne, is an escape mechanism by means of putting her in the air; while it does some damage, it was always incidental to the mobility it provided, especially since you really can't hit enemies most of the time.

I don't disagree that she should have more mobility than Titania, but mobility alone is a weak utility; between her non-Tribute abilities, Titania outclasses Zephyr in terms of crowd control and damage output, which are each more valuable in high-end play.

Ironically, I personally think she was built exactly for that, exactly because of those reasons.

Truth is, Turbulence makes her nigh invicible at range - such a powerful ability, were the frame to be used exclusively at distance, would be compensated with extremely limited defenses, both health and shields. And yet, she has massive pools of both, specially shields, a rarity among frames. Add that to Dive Bombs capacity to get close fast and Tail Winds ability to get away just as quickly, and what I see is a frame designed to hit-and-run tactics, more than pure air support.

I mean, shields are rechargeable. I think that means she is meant to get close, wreck havoc, and get away as soon as the resistance gets back on, and let her shielding recharge. She even has a D polarity in her aura slot, perfect for rejuvenation. She was meant to at the very least put herself on the risk of taking damage - and if Turbulence protects all damage from afar, she can only take damage from close up.

Going even further, Tornado is cast around her. Enemies are on the ground, not the air. If she was not meant to get to the ground to cast, I don't know what it was meant for. (OK it could be just poor design, but you get my point).

And as of now... Does Zephyr has *that* much to do in the air? I mean, yes, the simple fact she can rain death from above is something in and on itself, and any grenade launcher fits her like a glove, however Titania completely replaces her weapons with better ones when flying (giving an encouragement to keep this air support state), while the only thing Zephyr really gets is a buff to projectile speed - if she has an augment.

The truth is, I don't think Zephyr having more mobility - and more importantly, a different air-oriented role - than Titania is just something preferable: it is fundamental not to make the frames redundant. Whatever long range, air support powers we can give her, she will just be another version of titania, not her own frame, with her own role. And if hit-and-run, hawk like tactics seem already embedded in her kit, discarding those in favor of powers suited for a role already filled by another frame seems a bit of wasted potential.

That is my personal vision. She should not stay afar, she should get up close, hit hard, and get away, and her powers - that already somewhat reflect that - should reflect that even more.

And, writing this, I actually got another idea: in addition to making Dive Bomb her fastest power, another possible power could be introduced: vertical distance covered and speed gained by zephyr will increase her damage output by a certain multiplier - both during the movement, and for a short duration after slowing down. Multiplier would only be gained beyond a minimum speed threshold, and would refresh every time a high enough speed ability is used.

Basically, this power would incentivise exactly those hit and run tactics and sporadic air support: she gets the most by using her movement (her true strength, now materialized into raw power), allowing her powerful air support. However, due to dive bombs higher speed, like a hawk, she would trully shine when descending from the skies, downing every enemy around her, and brutally murdering them with powered up tools, before taking off again to search for other prey.

I suppose this could be innate to dive bomb, but making it another power altogether doesn't seen too terrible to be honest.

Edited July 29, 2017 by tnccs215

LolenderVx2 · July 29, 2017

Well, after reading the topic, i have so much things to say:

-First of all, I congratulate you and all those who have contributed to this topic for mading Warframe a more aswesome game. The ideas are amazing!

-And second, the thing that i have to say:

If someone ask me "Hey, how is that game of spaces ninjas that you play?", i will answer "Well, Warframe its a pseudo-perfect game"

I dont have any real problem whit grinding. Some frames/weapons/companions/game sistems/etc need from small to large adjustments or total reworks, but in essence, the game has that magic thing that nevers bores me: But, that's not what makes Warframe a pseudo-perfect game

The only real thing that really, really, REALLY bothers me of Warframe, are the enemies, and their IA: On a game like Warframe, whit very complex and varied ways and sistems, its really annoying that enemies are so dumb: Simple attack patterns, endless scaling (To "slow down" or stop the killing potential of the Frames), and no real variety on them (All the factions, at some point, works in the same swarm-attack patterns). Whit that on mind, this are my gameplay suggestion to improve enemies, making them more hard to chesse, whit this particular objetives:

-Make enemies a real challange to player, that require to show their real skills vs them

-Make more interesing, dinamic and balanced battles

-Make them more unique: You will have to learn how enemies work for survive

First of all, the enemy scalling:

Its not a secret that enemies needs a way to counter player power. Actually, enemies count whit the infinite scalling to counter the Godlike-powers and weapons of the Warframes (Whic its fine, because frames needs to feel powerful), but, in my opinion, the endless scalling its not a real solution to this problem

First of all, i will cap enemy level (Something like 60. Sorties are the exception: Here, enemy levels can go further the cap), whit their health/dammage/shield/armor scalling adjusted. How will enemies try to stop us so?

Adaptative IA:

This its part of the news ways of the enemy to counter the player: Enemies are now aware of player tactics. They see, learn and make decisions to counter all kind of tactics that player can do to kill them (Subtle, brute force, "slow death" by DOT, etc, all the ways to kill), but every faction do it at their own way

There is some kind of "Global enemy IA" that make the enemies "connected". Every enemy now have an "Skill tree", which its the Hearth of the Adaptative IA. How this works? Every enemy has their own and unique Skill tree: Every 15 levels, enemy get one "point" to aplly on their Trees (They start whit a point from levels 1 to 15, and get another at 30, etc). Every point of this tree have 2 functions: Make enemies more unique whit some special perks, and counter player tactics. Every enemy is designed to counter a specific playstyle. This is an example of how the tree will work on the Hyekka master:

Hyekka Master: Specialized on countering stealth enemies, and hordes

Natural abilities: Hyekka summoning, they can see invisible enemies, Firebomb

First options (From level 1 to 15):

-Extension: Increases the range of the Hyekka Master Ignis by a 40%

-Horde power: Increase Hyekka Master reload and fire rate by an 4% by every near Hyekka Kavat (12 mts of the Hyekka Master)

-Napalm: On impact, the Firebomb covers enemies near the impact point whit some volatile and viscous liquid, that make they recibe additional dammage for fire element and status proc, reducing their movility on the process. This effect last 12 seconds

Enemies can only take 1 option for every "tier" of Skills options (Tiers are divided every 3 or more skill options every 15 levels). However, the skill evolve, and go more and more complex every time the level increase. In an additional way, enemies skill trees arent static. Based on player tactics, the tree can be reseted on spawn to adapt a different counter-style.

Every faction Skill tree tactics are based on the enemy faction:

-The Grinner: Brute force, arcaic weapons, etc. The fearless Grinners attacks the enemy whit no mercy. Even if they know they are going to lose, they will not leave without first doing as much damage as possible

-The Corpus: Advanced tecnology, the contrast between light human units, and the strong robot units, etc. The Corpus preffer to take cover to shoot whit more secutiry, behind they machines, using tecnology to take all the adventaje possible

-The Infested: Swarm based tactics, evolving disease, etc. The Infestation have only on thing on mind: Consume every possible form of life, and trample anyone who gets in his way by their strange mutations, growing ever more destructive

In compensation to the lower level cap, enemies now are more smart, and spawn on bigger quantities than before. For example, the Grinner Scorpions can use their Hooks as an offensive tool (Atracting enemies) or as a movility tool (Climbing, jumping, etc)

Random tweaks and suggestions:

-Enemies have different weapons based on their level: On lower levels, they start whit low tier weapons, on medium levels, they have medium tier weapons, and on high tier, enemies have high tier weapons

-On the same way, all enemies got 2 weapons: One for ranged combat, and other for close combat. Some units only have 1 weapon (Like Scorpions, Butchers, generally, the close-combat based units)

-Enemies are divided on 3 groups:

1)Light: They do the smallest amount of dammage, and are generally close-combat based. To compensate this, their are the fastest and most agile of the 3 enemies types, having the ability to do things like dodging, doing some little parkour maneuvers, etc. Generally, this are the less resistant enemies

2)Medium: Their deal decent dammage, and are more resistent. But their arent not as agile and fast like the light units.

3)Heavy: A.k.a the f***** tanks. The deal a lot of dammage, and have extreme resistences, however, they dammage needs to be "heated up" on some way, and they cannot excecute maneuvers. This is compensated whit a total inmunity to stuns and ragdolls, and a progressive CC resistance. They cannot run, and are by far the slowest unitys of the group. Now, they dont have the "radial stun" at all time, its an ability that can be obtanied trought their skills

-Because all this changes, probably, so much things will change: From how each enemy works (For balance reasons, for example: A)The Bomber have to reload every time it shoots. The proyectali that they shots starts slowly and weak, but as they travel more distance, their AOE, speed and damage grows up B)The heavy gunners cannot move when they fire. Their weapons gains more fire rate and precision at more time they hold the trigger. Every unit on the game will probably need changes to adapt this sistem. Eximus will recibe changes soo), how much stats give the mods to the Warframes weapons, etc

-On players, every status effect should do something to make players worry about them.

-If you have completed all the nodes of a planet, you unlock a "Difficult selector" on that planet. The 4 Difficults are "Easy/Normal/Hard/True Ninja". The enemy lvls and rewards are based on the dificult of the mission

-Enemies have more diverse sounds: they dont recive any additional voice lines on so much time, and its weird hearing they say "Tenno Skoom!!" when they fight Corpus.

What are the adventajes of a sistem like this?

A) Players have to be more diverse on their tactics: Chessing the enemy whit the same tactic (Spamming Invisivility, for example) wont be possible

B) Warframes can be so broken/op as they want: This doesnt means that their are free of nerfs or adjust, but whit a sistem like this, when every enemy have tactics to counters you, the mentality on balance at the time of making new frames or reworking the old ones its different

But, there are some Disadvantages:

-Community salt

-Very hard to program

That is all i have to say. Sorry if i gave you cancer when you readed this. English its not my Native language :(

Good nights for everyone, Lolender

Edited July 29, 2017 by LolenderVx2
Added the Sortie exception

Azamagon · July 30, 2017

On 2017-07-29 at 1:46 AM, Archwizard said:

So, I'd like to start some discussion of Zephyr today.

She's one of the top Warframes in need of a rework, in part due to sharing many of the same issues as Hydroid - flat damage, movement abilities outdated by Parkour 2.0, and an RNG-affected CC ultimate that makes enemies harder to target. The only reason she isn't as high on the rework list as Hydroid is presently, is due to her Turbulence ability actually being a functional and valued support tool for many parties, particularly on Corpus missions.

Part of the goal behind the design for Zephyr as implemented is to be an air support-style Warframe. Her passive and first ability grant her mobility in the air, her third ability increases her defense at range, her ultimate helplessly renders enemies airborne with her and her second ability provides her with a unique advantage against enemies beneath her. However, this design was never fully functional due to the limited space within tilesets, as well as the issues implementing Zephyr as mentioned above.

I'd like to take some time to get back to roots and look into Volkovyi's designs for Zephyr. His concept included the ability to render Zephyr airborne indefinitely; while she was implemented in a time when complete freedom of mobility was frowned upon due to the limitations of tileset design, Parkour 2.0 and Wukong have each since shown a new direction in this regard for DE. I am personally of the mind that in spite of the limitations of her design in executing the air support niche, it is not an entirely improbable niche to fulfill as seen with Titania, particularly with the upcoming open world tilesets.

So, some ideas, with inspiration from today's devstream:

Tail Wind is rolled into her Passive: Zephyr has indefinite bullet jumping and 10x increased aimglide, and leaves behind trails of slicing winds for a brief period after she bullet jumps.

New first ability: Zephyr summons a Bird of Prey with limited health that will rest on her shoulder. The Bird of Prey will seek enemies who Zephyr attacks and continuously deal physical damage and Blind.

Dive Bomb replaced: Zephyr fires a traveling gust of wind along the ground in a line in front of herself (similar to Condemn) that deals Impact damage and renders enemies helplessly airborne for a period, similarly to Rhino Stomp. When the effect ends, affected enemies are pushed back.

Turbulence unchanged.

Tornado reworked: Zephyr summons a funnel of wind in a cylinder around herself. While channeling this effect, Zephyr is capable of slow flight with Archwing controls, and enemies who contact the cylinder will be sucked into the vortex and held there until the ability is released. Allied projectiles fired into the Tornado will be redirected to enemies caught within; while Turbulence is active, hostile projectiles will also be deflected in the same way. Performing a melee attack will break Zephyr out of Tornado, but increase the attack's damage and treat it as an aerial attack.

And yes, I'm still thinking about reworking the ultimate for Ember so we don't have two "birds of prey" floating around, I'm just concerned about World on Fire being incredibly passive (and counterintuitive to most of her kit) in its current design. Almost tempted to say "I give up" and just have WoF prevent sprinting while active to discourage keeping it up 90% of the time in Exterminates, but that won't stop people from AFKing on the cryopod.

So... Zephyr. I really have to chime in here, because there are some things I agreed with here, and some I do not.

First of all, I think these changes might be TOO radical. As @tnccs215 have already mentioned in here, Zephyr seems to be designed (DE's version, not Volkovyi's original) to be more of a hit-and-run "hawk" with bursty flight, rather than a floating "helicopter", something that Titania currently covers. And I agreed with tnccs215: Zephyr should remain more of a "striker", and leave Titania as the air supporter. It would indeed be redundant otherwise.

While tnccs215 has said a lot of the same things already, I'm gonna say my feedback for your suggestions too:

Passive - Being one of the first persons who suggested something along these lines (making Tailwind, in one way or another, her passive), I obviously agreed with making her passives all around granting her very high air mobility. I like your take on it, but I'd like to suggest my own too (done further down), even if I think yours is a simpler and probably better approach overall.

Bird of Prey - While the intention is neat with this one, I disagreed with this ability. I mean, it's cool, but it caters to that "air support"-style you were going for, an approach I already mentioned I disgreed with. Rather than giving her this ability, I'd heavily improve Titania's Razorflies instead, so Titania can fill this ability's roll better (rather than both of them trying to do the same thing).

Gust of Wind - I kind of like this style of ability for Zephyr, but I feel your approach to it too heavily caters to the air support-style (as that was your intention), so, I still somewhat disagreed. It's not bad, but think about it: It's effectively Spellbound all over again, just with a different firing mechanism (linear projectile, rather than AoE blast). An ability similar to this could definitely fit in her kit though, if designed more towards the hit-and-run style, imo.

Turbulence - If Zephyr became a hovering air support kind of 'frame, Turbulence could potentially make her too good, imo. Compare that to Titania; She can hover, but she also has non-guaranteed evasion, to make sure that she is not completely invincible when up there out of harm's reach.

Tornado - Well, I disagreed with the hovering style, so I'm sorry, but I fully disagreed with this complete revamp as well.

I just look at all those revamped abilities, and all I see a slightly different version of Titania. Zephyr being redesigned this way would truly feel more redundant. Like I mentioned before, Zephyr currently caters to a more bursty hit-and-run hawk-style, so I think it's better to try and keep her that way - just done better of course.

Sidenote: I've mentioned before, Ember having a "control another unit"-kind of ability doesn't fit her at all, that kind of thing would be a more interesting thing for Nyx (during Absorb, she could holdcast Mind Control to manually control her MC-target, that kind of thing).
Ember caters to a highly mobile style, the fact that WoF is too ez-mode on lower levels can be fixed in other ways (line of sight, can never deal more than X% of an enemy's max health per damage-instance, etc). Ember's ulti is more of a CC-ability on high levels, which gives her a very fun playstyle on said high level content, especially when there's TONS of enemies around; WoF on with augment = lots of CC while parkouring like crazy, while using Accelerant (preferably augmented too) to boost damage and for some snap CC, while Fire Blast is the powerful knockaway tool against multiple enemies when things get too intense, with only Fireball being generally useless. So I really disagreed with revamping WoF that much, as it'd make Ember really, really boring for us that like her currently very mobile playstyle.

Anyway, back to Zephyr.

I have discussed with @Thaylien and @Renovakunumaru before (two major Zephyr-enthusiasts) in many other Zephyr-threads, and they have both also wanted to keep her as a Striker-esque frame. Thaylien has a good rework (here: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/805387-zephyr-shock-and-awe/ ) and while I might not fully agreed with every little detail in there, I think he has done a nice job to cater to that style.

My own approach towards this Striker-style would go something like this:

Passive
My first approach was to make her fly continuously forward when you held the jumpbutton, along with her slowed gravity and MASSIVELY increased aimgliding time. This might be a bit too powerful, not to mention something that might be a bit "inorganic", so I think your approach is better (infinite bulletjumps, and ofc the increased aimglide).

However, I do like my approach to it as it could be done in a way that would flow very smoothly with parkour 2.0 -> Imagine flying around and then you get close to a wall. Since the flight is based on holding the jumpbutton, she would automatically start wallrunning when she gets in contact with the wall. Once she aims outwards again, she'd smoothly continue her flight.
Also, since she could do a bulletjump (but now HOLDING the jumpbutton), it'd be a bulletjump that transitions straight into flight.

All in all, I don't think this passive still would be all too powerful, because to FIGHT in midair (with her ranged weapons I mean), she'd have to use her aimglide a lot, which would still be somewhat limitted. Straight forward flight + shooting is not the easiest thing, nor the most practical approach to do, as that could make her get too close for comfort, and even collide and thus stop right in the melee range of enemies, something she'd not endure very well.
Oh well *shrugs*

#1 Gale Force
Cast on the ground = Straight up jump with some AoE knockdown (similar to Tailwind when groundcasted)
Cast in the air = Dive to the ground (If heldcast in the air it'd be aimable with some angle and then also showing a circular reticle where you would land+the AoE of the shockwave) with a shockwave that deals damage and ragdolls enemies a bit upwards and away (nothing extreme though, but mainly to make it FEEL strong)
However, the important change here: The divebomb's shockwave scales much better -> The shockwave damage also scales with melee mods and height. The shockwave radius (besides from Power Range mods) now also scales with height, but the rangebonus only adds up to 50% more radius based on height.

#2 Cyclone
Similar to your gust of wind, but more so Thaylien's Dervish;
Zephyr creates a small tornado that travels forward like an aimed projectile. However, if it hits the ground, it will continue straight forward along the ground. As it travels along, it collects enemies into it from a moderate range (bigger range than the tornado itself). When it ends (either after a max distance, or hitting a wall / obstruction or whatever else keeping it from continuing forward, or when recast) it releases all enemies close to the landing point. So, a mix of Harrow's Condemn (it travels somewhat similarly) and Vauban's Vortex (it collects enemies similarly).

This is meant as a snap CC tool, and/or as a tool to gather enemies together for an efficient Gale Force divebomb attack. It would be good at doing so regardless if cast from the ground or from the air.
Its nature of pushing enemies away from her also fits well with the defensive mechanism of Turbulence.

#3 Turbulence
Stays as it is.
Considering she can't stay easily in the air (as she is meant to have bursty movement) and the fact that her main damaging tool (Gale Force's divebomb) brings her close to the enemies makes sure that her defenses, despite Turbulence's existence, is not too good, especially if you play / judge the situation poorly in regards to when you will divebomb and such.

#4Tornado
I'm not sure how to approach this ability, but I'd go along the lines of Thaylien's version, to give her some kind of panicbutton when stuff gets too intense and/or when it's hard to maneuver and use her other abilities. That means it's more of a zoning CC-ability with decent damage.

One idea I had for it was that the Tornado is a big and static one, kind of like a big version of Vortex, but with enemies more randomly spread throughout the Tornado, due to its swirling nature (in contrast to Vauban's Vortex which neatly clumps all enemies together). For Zephyr, this wouldn't matter though, because she can just divebomb into the bunch and hurt them all anyway (due to the divebomb's AoE nature).
Further, recasting means ending the Tornado (this gives it a clearer disadvantage to Vortex; Vortex can be spammed at many places at once and clumps enemies together, but is not so big. Tornado is big, but doesn't clump enemies together nor can it be spammed in many seperate places at once)

That means, the intentions of the abilities are like this:
* Passive - Mobility, to help with preparing for her Gale Force divebomb.
* Gale Force - The powerful damage AoE tool that requires some preparation (gaining height, mainly). On the ground, it can help to prepare for a quick divebomb too.
* Cyclone - The quick CC ability that moves enemies over to certain spots in a clumped up fashion, perfect for efficient divebombing and/or for putting enemies in your Tornado
* Turbulence - The defensive ability that allows her to prepare for her combos with less risk.
* Tornado - The lasting CC ability which KEEPS enemies in a certain spot, along with dealing some decent damage, but in a more scattered fashion.

Edited July 30, 2017 by Azamagon
Spelling and stuff

Archwizard · July 31, 2017

21 hours ago, Azamagon said:

Zephyr should remain more of a "striker", and leave Titania as the air supporter. It would indeed be redundant otherwise.

It's frustrating to hear that "Zephyr shouldn't be an air support because Titania is," despite Zephyr laying the groundwork and holding the position for far longer, while Titania is (arguably) more of a "hit and run" striker than Zephyr.

If you look at Titania, you have a Warframe who is not only capable of melee attacking while airborne with an ability that scales off of her melee weapon mods, but has Razorflies that attack enemies within a limited range, and an augment to her Lantern that encourages using melee attacks, on top of an increased mobility tool and the ability to render enemies helplessly airborne; given that her survivability relies almost exclusively on the latter, it's easy to see that her playstyle is essentially "pacify the target area and rush in for the kill," as opposed to aiming down and obliterating the ground from the sky.

Zephyr's "hit and run" tactics are limited to a clone of Slash Dash before it was designed to hit anything, and a weaker version of Ground Slams. Meanwhile, her passive and both of her early abilities either immediately enable or encourage staying in the air, as opposed to Titania's... ultimate.
She's an air elemental - literally in the title, "air support". She's based on a bird. Calling her a hit-and-run frame basically reduces her flight capabilities to a gimmick, one of many potential means to an end.

Now admittedly, I did attempt to give Zephyr the ability to pull enemies into the air so that she could make some use of the air dash damage of her passive (which I had always seen as the only practical connection Tornado held in Zephyr's particular kit), but admittedly it would be minor damage so it's a design worth reconsidering. The design I proposed was merely a first iteration, and I accept it has flaws.
However, I do not see that the position of air support is "held" (much less exclusively) by Titania.
_{I mean c'mon, no position in Warframe is "held" by any one frame. We have entire categories of melee frames, gunner frames, healer frames, tanky frames, environmental engineers, etc.}

On 7/29/2017 at 4:15 PM, tnccs215 said:

My desire to keep dive bomb separated from tail wind is born out of the wish to keep player control. Truth is, fusing both powers would obligatorily create the same issues that melee air attacks and ground slams have: use it on too steep an angle, and you go straight down. Use it on a not steep enough one, and you go straight forward. Keeping the powers separated seems fundamental to maintain optimal, directional control, and also allows the "hold to aim" functionality for dive bomb.

... on the other hand...

What if Tail Wind functioned as-is, but had Dive Bomb as a "hold to aim" effect (with a targeting reticule in a certain cone beneath herself)?

... And I swear I was pondering that all day today before I just now read -

21 hours ago, Azamagon said:

Cast in the air = Dive to the ground (If heldcast in the air it'd be aimable with some angle and then also showing a circular reticle where you would land+the AoE of the shockwave)

- which is actually a functional solution, particularly with the bonus from melee attacks.
I think we can work with this for her 1, although I'd say the 2 and 4 are still points of contention.

EDIT: Another consideration is that both Titania and Zephyr lack any ability to perform the classical Air Support tactic/utility of simply carpet-bombing a target area. If we're opening gaps for Zephyr anyway... this would fit both the ideal of raining hell from the sky and hitting and running...

Aaaand as for Ember...

21 hours ago, Azamagon said:

Sidenote: I've mentioned before, Ember having a "control another unit"-kind of ability doesn't fit her at all, that kind of thing would be a more interesting thing for Nyx (during Absorb, she could holdcast Mind Control to manually control her MC-target, that kind of thing).
Ember caters to a highly mobile style, the fact that WoF is too ez-mode on lower levels can be fixed in other ways (line of sight, can never deal more than X% of an enemy's max health per damage-instance, etc). Ember's ulti is more of a CC-ability on high levels, which gives her a very fun playstyle on said high level content, especially when there's TONS of enemies around; WoF on with augment = lots of CC while parkouring like crazy, while using Accelerant (preferably augmented too) to boost damage and for some snap CC, while Fire Blast is the powerful knockaway tool against multiple enemies when things get too intense, with only Fireball being generally useless. So I really disagreed with revamping WoF that much, as it'd make Ember really, really boring for us that like her currently very mobile playstyle.

I've always said that the Phoenix ability was a placeholder. I'm open to something else, I simply find discussions dominated more by complaints about the Phoenix ability than proposals for a functional replacement.

I understand that her ultimate is more of a CC at high levels, but "HP-capping" for low levels is just a reactionary nerf with workarounds via the applied status, Accelerant, and just stacking enough Power Strength for the ability to reach a notable percentage (and having enemies die in two bursts as you walk past instead of one is not exactly an improvement), while line of sight does nothing to prevent players from AFKing on top of cryopods with World on Fire and letting enemies come to them. Furthermore, simply reducing the ability to its core CC component also serves no benefit to Ember, considering the majority of her kit is purely CC at high levels.

Edited July 31, 2017 by Archwizard

Birdframe_Prime · July 31, 2017

I think your real problem here, @Archwizard is that you're trying to make her fill a role that doesn't really exist. Titania and Zephyr both, when you think about it.

There is no air support, as such, because only one enemy ever goes up in the air and stays there for any length of time (Grineer Hellions) and so you're having to introduce functions that get enemies up there. Neither Titania nor Zephyr fulfill that role because DE don't have a function that would cause that role to actually be helpful. Plains of Eidolon is the closest situation, you see, and they've shown on the last Devstream that even when you have Archwings as a means to provide actual air support, it's going to have limits and be more of an engage and travel function than a sustained air support method.

Titania doesn't 'air support' she 'helicopters' which is she flies in low altitude, pops up every now and again to get a better angle, and then returns to the actual level of the playing field. Her small size during Razorwing makes space for aerial movement that doesn't exist for the larger frames.

People like myself and Renova aren't trying to make Zephyr into a 'hit and run' but something that does actually exist in Warframe day-to-day play, which is a Shock Trooper. Sounds aggressive, because it is, but the idea behind it is this; in nearly every challenging run you'll find a time when a team member goes down and is surrounded by the enemy. You jump in, clear away threats, revive them or hold the ground while another person revives them (because that's sensible) and then move on. Frames like Frost, Rhino and Excal are good for that, you jump in, use an ability to crowd control or otherwise push back enemies (Snowglobe is good for that especially) use your abilities and gunplay to clear the direct threats away, and then have the ability to survive long enough to revive and fight on.

The same works when there's any close packed group of enemies and you're not a stealth frame or sniping weapon user, you want to bowl on in, fight around, then move on.

Rather than hit-and-run it's hit and hold.

Zephyr was, in her DE adjusted and created incarnation, supposed to do that. Tailwind for great mobility and gaining height, Dive Bomb for an instant engage and also low-radius CC for when things get close, Turbulence for survival once everything had been pushed back, and Tornado for wide area disruption when she needed to hold ground for longer.

So yeah, she's an air caster, and has a helmet modelled after a bird, but that doesn't mean there's a role for an air support frame, as you'd see it. Zephyr was made for fast movement and great sustain, so she hits in and then keeps hitting, but has an escape all ready to go.

An idea that hit me when I was doing my most recent remake is that targeting reticule you mentioned, but not a held one. Imagine if simply every time you were aim gliding it painted the reticule on the ground up to a range-modded distance away from you, and abilities would go there. A Dive Bomb would then have the option of being targeted away from you, but limited to the ground so you couldn't Dive Bomb the ceiling, or the far wall of the tile for insane mobility. But then think about spawning a reworked Tornado cast at that point, allowing you to keep your distance from the point you're actually controlling, help out a team or zone off an area that you're not able to directly affect normally. Another would be to have that planned new ability (the one that I or Azamagon want to give her for example) spawn at that point and move in the direction away from Zephyr.

In effect, look at it this way; you have your actual air-to-ground casting to affect things like an air support, if you have the headroom to use it but then her abilities would all have functions for when you had low headroom too, they would all still work together whether you were at a distance or up close.

Again, that's why it took me so long to come up with a full rework, and why Azamagon was so quick to point out my rework as an example, because I have spoken with as many of the most active Zephyr thread visitors and active comment makers as I can to get opinions on both what people wanted out of her as a concept, and as a functioning warframe.

A fast, dash-like glide and vertical launch built into her movement as part of her passive would remove then need for a dash-for-energy cast, meaning you could then downgrade Dive Bomb to her 1, making it a ground-based radial knockdown (think of it as a balance from Sonic Boom, which is a conical ragdoll cast with a high base range, versus a radial knock down with a short base range) and then if cast in the air it can also deal damage by scaling both off height and melee mods. A new 2 would be something that pushes in a direction, dragging enemies away and together (such as out of a corridor into an open tile) with very low damage to ensure that the ability is a situational either/or choice between it and the radial knockdown. And to top it off, a solid heavy-cc cast that sustains for a duration to affect an area, performing area denial but balanced with having a range-modded area that still allows enemies to shoot into it, if cast inaccurately... of course, having an off switch means you could cancel and recast it better if you have the energy.

You then don't need any tap/hold functions, any 'toolkit' functions, you just have a frame with a passive that allows movement beyond what a normal frame can do, and four functional abilities that don't need inter-ability synergy to have actual synergy. A 2 cast that pushes away and groups enemies coupled with a passive that lets you leap into the air and aim your 1 for high damage on a small group? Simple as you can get. A fixed-range heavy CC that enemies are not keen on walking into, and an ability that pushes enemies into it? Simple. And a passive that allows fast horizontal and burst vertical movement coupled with an ability that shields you from ranged damage? Simple.

Best for my designs, though, not only is it simple, it can fill multiple roles and would function nearly everywhere. The shock trooper, the aerial support, the speedy hunter of Capture targets, she'd even be able to deal with Infested on a more even playing field than now with great close-range CC and a way to push melee enemies away for a short while.

The specifics can be discussed and argued over until they actually work, I'm always up for that, but you've got to see the strength in the overall concept, right?

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

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