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

[Archwizard]

So, so sorry for allowing this thread to fall by the wayside. My GPU had a meltdown near the end of last month and I've only been able to sneak in posts here and there from my phone whenever I wasn't diagnosing and repairing my desktop, which meant I couldn't give this thread the attention it deserved. (Naturally the lack of computer meant a lack of time for Warframe itself.)

Looking forward to getting back into the swing of things, once I've had time to gather my thoughts and figure out where everything stands what in the OP is outdated. I did get some testing on Hydroid before my hiatus and found his state to still be lacking, but it has asked for some reconsideration towards what needs to be kept/thrown out of the OP and what from his latest rework has been dis/satisfactory.

I also had an opportunity to look at a Brozime video that had a few thoughts similar to what I'd been considering for Atlas, including some that already made it into the OP. Looking at the front page though, I'm realizing that some of my parting thoughts on Atlas (particularly regarding Rumblers) never actually made it in, so that's a matter to consider.

[EpicBred]

Good to have you back Archwizard, i was wondering why this thread has been so quiet.

I want to bring attention to my hydroid rework i presented on the last page. I was looking for some feedback but I didnt get what I expected.

[Archwizard]

On 9/29/2017 at 8:06 AM, EpicBred said:

I want to bring attention to my hydroid rework i presented on the last page. I was looking for some feedback but I didnt get what I expected.

Well, just giving it a look real quick...

The new 4 is interesting in concept, particularly as far as repurposing Tidal Surge into a raw CC effect. On the other hand, while I appreciate the CC caused by rolling enemies back and forth along the battlefield, the fact that it moves enemies constantly would limit the effectiveness of his area-focused Barrage (particularly with your suggestion to make it more concentrated), and the root effect of his 3 would actively reduce its damage output. Even if we consider the effective similarities to Rhino Stomp to justify the high cost of what is effectively Pull combined with Sonic Boom, I don't think such a rehash would add to Hydroid's particular kit or playstyle.

His 2 is definitely problematic - toggled invulnerability at zero penalties to the player, beyond a slight energy drain. While I understand that Undertow provides similar at-will invulnerability, even the same "shots fired add to damage" mechanic, Undertow penalizes Hydroid's mobility, dampens the reach of his other abilities, actively diverts enemy fire toward your allies, and carries some heavy energy costs towards moving or grappling enemies. (And in many respects, Undertow is still OP.)
I also agree with taiiat's assessment that the process of adding damage to your abilities is much too similar to Volt's own playstyle of "charging up" his abilities.
At best, this ability would still require you to cast it as a prerequisite to all other abilities, increasing their effective cost, which is a problem I already have with Ember's Accelerant.

As far as whether to make his 3 toggled or durational... how would you add a new pool if the same button press is supposed to cancel the current one?

Edited October 2, 2017 by Archwizard

[EpicBred]

I think I have to say some things about the 4th ability i suggested. With gigantic I meant it could be made wide enough (with range) to cover the whole entrance area of a void defense. I intended it to be used for collecting and concentrating enemies, the total opposite of how you understood it apparently. The releasing enemies after it ends shouldnt be like pull, where they fly another 100 meters behind you, but "gently" leaving them piled/grouped up on the ground. You would be able to effectively lay them in the puddles or use barrage on them (or both). You can also just push them away from what ever you want, for example freeing the cryo pod in the defense scenario again. I thought these work really well together.

About his 2, I dont think people would spam it to be invincible all the time. Most people dont like to play wukong for his defy gameplay, and that is a way simpler way of not dying than this one. People who would want easy invincibility would choose wukong. No one would take this hydroid to press 2 every 3 seconds.

What if I said you arent able to use your weapons for the duration? If you think it was unbalanced this would be a fix that makes sense. The reason i implemented this ability was because there are lots of players that loved hydroids damaging abilities (while they were insane). I thought this would be a more active or reactive way of doing this. I personally wanted him to be a pure cc frame.

BTW

Press 3: create puddle

Hold 3: take puddle away

[Archwizard]

46 minutes ago, EpicBred said:

the total opposite of how you understood it apparently.

No, I understood that part.

But you specifically refer to how Power Strength slows the amount of time it takes for the wave to travel, implying that the higher your strength is, the longer victims are CC'd - hence my comparison to Rhino Stomp as an area lockdown effect. I merely referred to Pull and Sonic Boom for the push and pull effects listed, because there are literally no better references to a push or pull effect in this game (beyond the ability you're scrapping I suppose); at no point did I make reference to the ragdolls these abilities have upon release, especially since I have repeatedly expressed my disdain for the ragdoll Pull presently has and wished it to share exactly the same format (depositing enemies at the caster's feet, which it used to have before it was reworked to match the Profit trailer) as you suggest.

Another problem I see with this is that push-into-pull effect: not only does the wave only pull back as far as the wave itself was traveling, but it needs to initially push back any victims you wish to pull in, which combined with the Power Strength scaling slowing its travel time, could mean a very, very slow pull. If you want to get enemies away from some position, it's terrible; if you mean to close the gap, you're better off just bullet jumping.

But since you asked me to re-examine it, I just noticed the mention that the wave would catch projectiles too, which I'm sure you meant to slide in as a means to give Hydroid his own iteration of Electric Shield and the like... on top of having already given him complete invulnerability from his 2. Seems a bit overkill at best, and outright counterproductive at worst considering his 2 builds up based on the damage he receives directly.

You also don't mention whether you can double the maximum uptime of the effect by pressing 4 again near the end of its travel period.

46 minutes ago, EpicBred said:

No one would take this hydroid to press 2 every 3 seconds.

Based on the information provided, I'm afraid to say that every statement of that paragraph is completely wrong.

You didn't specify that the effect would have a short duration or be canceled when he next casts an ability, only that the stored damage would be added to the next cast; from the way it is written, it is interpreted that you can simply cast Tempest Barrage to reset the damage counter built up from his 2, while his 2 remains active and simply starts building all over again. Given that you mentioned the ability had a drain on it, the assumption is that you could leave it near permanently active with the right build.
Complete invulnerability with one button, which would be simpler than Wukong (who needs to heal and switch off with his 3 when he runs Defy too long), and closer to Valkyr's Hysteria (where people only turn it off because either they lack the energy capacity, or just want their guns back).

46 minutes ago, EpicBred said:

The reason i implemented this ability was because there are lots of players that loved hydroids damaging abilities (while they were insane).

Literally one of his damaging abilities. The other three were still considered sub-par for damage, even if you had the augment for his Barrage.

Honestly my question about this is, does it really fit Hydroid's Pirate theme to make him purely a caster like you suggest? I could understand if he was meant to be, say, some type of summoner class or purely based around sea monsters, but... he isn't.

46 minutes ago, EpicBred said:

Press 3: create puddle

Hold 3: take puddle away

Question is whether it's possible to have a Hold effect on a Toggled ability, since I can't think of any such examples already implemented. Far as I'm aware, Toggled abilities are programmed to just de/activate regardless of if you press or hold.

Might be better to just go with a duration to remove complications.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Archwizard

[EpicBred]

Hm, I see the power strength speed scaling wasnt the best idea. Maybe let it do the opposite? So speed it up? Or remove it completely.

40 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

Another problem I see with this is that push-into-pull effect: not only does the wave only pull back as far as the wave itself was traveling, but it needs to initially push back any victims you wish to pull in, which combined with the Power Strength scaling slowing its travel time, could mean a very, very slow pull.

You could say enemies caught in the puddle that are hat by the wave take extra damage, but stay locked in the puddle. My rework is obviously not set in stone, its just an idea. Very rarely can one person have the perfect idea. Im willing to change it up, and try to come up with changes through the feedback i get.

I dont see the problem with the wave only pulling as far back as it has travelled. Makes sense to me.

I thought it catching projectiles was necessary, since you probably cant see very well what is happening behind the wave.

49 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

You didn't specify that the effect would have a short duration

Yes I did. I cant quote from the last page since I am on mobile, but I wrote the base duration would be 3 seconds. After that the ability ends.

But I wasnt clear enough with how the damage would be stored. You absorb damage for the duration of the ability, and its still stored after the duration ended. It gets released with the next ability cast. If you cast 3 again, the stored damage is reset.

56 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

Literally one of his damaging abilities. The other three were still considered sub-par for damage, even if you had the augment for his Barrage.

Sorry, wanted to say damage capabilities and not damage abilities.

57 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

Honestly my question about this is, does it really fit Hydroid's Pirate theme to make him purely a caster like you suggest? I could understand if he was meant to be, say, some type of summoner class or purely based around sea monsters, but... he isn't

Except his prime model nothing about him is pirate themed. His abilities are completely summoner/water bender.

As for the create / remove puddle, I agree, duration would be better.

[tnccs215]

2 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Question is whether it's possible to have a Hold effect on a Toggled ability, since I can't think of any such examples already implemented. Far as I'm aware, Toggled abilities are programmed to just de/activate regardless of if you press or hold.

Might be better to just go with a duration to remove complications.

Two words:

Guided Effigy. 

[EpicBred]

3 hours ago, Archwizard said:

You also don't mention whether you can double the maximum uptime of the effect by pressing 4 again near the end of its travel period.

I forgot this part of your post: yes you can. No matter how far the wave has travelled, it returns to the point where you first cast it when you press 4 a second time

[Archwizard]

On 10/3/2017 at 5:08 AM, EpicBred said:

Hm, I see the power strength speed scaling wasnt the best idea. Maybe let it do the opposite? So speed it up? Or remove it completely.

Honestly, while not unprecedented, the way you have stat scaling set up with that ability as a whole is nonintuitive; Duration determines the area it covers, Strength determines the duration it lasts for, and Range only affects one dimension of the path.
Furthermore, the fact that the ability is arbitrarily affected by all three stats at all could interfere with builds, or push players towards a negative Power Strength configuration since both extremes would be valuable (one for locking down enemies, the other for snap movement). 

On 10/3/2017 at 5:08 AM, EpicBred said:

Except his prime model nothing about him is pirate themed.

His base model's helmet has an eyepatch, his first alternate helmet has a pirate hat, his signature weapon (both Primed and otherwise) is a cutlass, his ultimate ability summons a creature meant to be a hazard of sea-faring travel and his first power calls down a silo of cannon fire. The developers announced his intended Pirate theme before they announced his name; while your mileage my vary on how well it is executed, it is doubtlessly a guiding element to his continued development.

On 10/3/2017 at 6:27 AM, tnccs215 said:

Guided Effigy. 

Thank you for the correction.

Edited October 5, 2017 by Archwizard

[EpicBred]

I personally think the duration/range/strength split makes sense, although I see how making inverting my original strength-speed scaling makes sense. But if it confuses people, we could change it to

Range: how far it travels

Duration: speed

Strength: width

On 5.10.2017 at 3:20 AM, Archwizard said:

Furthermore, the fact that the ability is arbitrarily affected by all three stats at all could interfere with builds, or push players towards a negative Power Strength configuration since both extremes would be valuable (one for locking down enemies, the other for snap movement). 

Whats bad about that? Depending on how you want to use the ability you can maximize one or two stats and sacrifice another for it. There shouldnt be only one way to mod an ability. Nova also has benefits for having negative power strength. I think it makes the ability more interesting and versitile.

On 5.10.2017 at 3:20 AM, Archwizard said:

his ultimate ability summons a creature meant to be a hazard of sea-faring travel and his first power calls down a silo of cannon fire

If that is piraty enough, whats the problem with my ideas? I still have barrage and tentacles

[Archwizard]

Alright so, Gara has officially dropped! Apologies for the delay in actually beginning discussion on her, I only managed to get the last part I needed from bounties earlier in the week and finished leveling her today. (On top of that whole Focus fiasco before that.)

Gara is... an interesting frame. In many ways she bears similarities to Frost with more utility, as she can CC and defend as effectively as he can on top of having an ability that deals melee weapon damage.
However, she's also confusing. While it's easy enough to mix her first and ultimate abilities due to their built-in interaction, the other skills in her kit are harder to utilize. Her 2 provides mitigation, but there shouldn't be any need for that while her 4 is active, unless you seek mobility outside of the circle (more on that in a minute). Alternately, her 2 can make an enemy more vulnerable to damage, but only affects one victim at a time (at a cost of 50 energy per target) and pushes other enemies away from its target; if the goal of her 3 and 4 is to box enemies in, then the separation mechanic from her 2 is out of place, particularly since enemies are supposed to be damaged the longer they remain within. Her 3 detonates by receiving certain damage thresholds, but most of her kit is heavy CC that interrupts incoming damage in the first place, particularly her ultimate (which would benefit most of all from the grouping tool her 3 provides).
Her 2 and 3 are also fraught with false-advertising. The description of Splinter Storm explicitly mentions that it "impairs enemy weapons" separately from its mitigation, but I've seen nothing to indicate any type of disarm or weapon-jamming effect - which particularly sucks, since such a disarm would work well with the grouping effect of her 3. Gara is described as being able to reflect attacks, but Spectrorage is more like a delayed-cast bomb with flat damage - so aside from the gathering effect, it's virtually useless beyond a certain level.
(I just spotted on the wiki that there's a hidden interaction between her 2 and 3 where Spectrorage explosions increase the DoT of Splinter Storm, but there is literally zero indication of that anywhere in-game or in her profile. Even so, we're just looking at a combo effect that begs the player to churn out energy that Gara just doesn't have in as short a time as possible.)
Even if Spectrorage did reflect damage, the concept of her 2 and 3 having mitigation and damage reflection be separated is... bizarre, counterintuitive even, particularly since you can't target her mirrors with her mitigation effect to draw out their longevity.

Shattered Lash is tricky to utilize as well, in part due to the changes made to it before release; when she was shown off two or three devstreams back, the hold function of her 1 fired a beam that could continuously Impale enemies, while now it's a swing effect and she sweeps enemies aside rather than impaling. While the tap function looks like a ranged attack, it appears to really just be a stab with the same reach as the swing (sans the arc). It really leaves me to question why one would even just fire the stab - particularly since, according to the wiki, the stab and slash deal two different damage types (which carries over to her 4), and since it's affected by melee mods, your weapon is best built with a preference for one over the other.
What's really curious is that in spite of Lash having an option to do Puncture damage, she has no other particularly anti-armor abilities in her kit. Both her 2 and her 4 simply add a damage multiplier to affected enemies.

And then we come to her 4, which is the most powerful tool in her kit.
As in, the best of every version of Snow Globe powerful, and then some.
My question is, doesn't this ability run into the same issues as the original version of Snow Globe? The wall is completely invulnerable to damage for the entire duration (unless you break it), but since that duration is relatively low, you're still going to be sitting on top of the cryopod and barely ever leaving the radius of the circle, in spite of the mobile mitigation offered by her 2. Add to that a few extra abilities the original Snow Globe didn't have - the complete mobility block, the channeled invulnerability, the freeze effect we're familiar with from the current iteration, Molecular Prime's damage boost, the ability to scale its size to fit the situation - and you have an ability that is borderline overpowered (especially when you consider that Tectonics has the same mobility block, but covers a much smaller area and still has a health pool). Presently there's no reason not to use it the same way as the old Snow Globe by just making as small a circle as possible around Defense objectives - other than the open top, which is virtually only an issue in PoE content.
I would not be surprised if we see this nerfed before we see any buffs to Spectrorage.

Best case scenario for which I can imagine using all four abilities might be... casting Spectrorage to group targets, spamming Splinter Storm to make them more vulnerable to damage and DoT them up (using Spectrorage to increase the DoT), Mass Vitrify to refresh the duration of Splinter Storm and amplify damage further, and then Shattered Lash to clean up the targets grouped by Spectrorage while breaking Vitrify for more damage.
Except: Splinter Storm would immediately de-group targets, the cost of maximizing Splinter Storm would be exorbitant, Vitrify would CC enemies to prevent Spectorage from being shattered, the duration refreshing from Vitrify seems to be buggy (if it exists at all; once again, information from the wiki), and that is just way too many casts to do to a group of enemies what most other frames could do by spamming one or two abilities.

I'm also confused by the D polarity aura she receives. I would understand a V polarity since her 1 scales off melee mods and her whole kit seems to scale off Power Strength, I would understand a -- polarity since she's intended to combo her abilities (and everyone can use armor-piercing), but a D? She has unremarkable survivability stats and none of her skills appear to particularly scale with health or armor. At best you can fit Rejuvenation into the slot to supplement Splinter Storm's mitigation but, again, best case you aren't receiving any damage in the first place between her 4 and her passive.

EDIT: I've got it: Gara represents a backslide on frame design. She's got all of these tools, some of which are completely redundant, but there's no intuitive flow between them - just like the first generation of frames. The issue crops up that they still use tools from today's design (like melee scaling or hidden interactions between specific abilities) while still using outdated design philosophy.

On 10/6/2017 at 1:53 AM, EpicBred said:

If that is piraty enough, whats the problem with my ideas? I still have barrage and tentacles

What remains of the tentacles in your rework is almost purely cosmetic. You could have victims be partially submerged in puddles, or trapped in personal water bubbles, and it would have the same effect.

Besides, I didn't say it was "piratey enough." DE claimed they wanted to give him a pirate theme, I think it's sorely lacking (since it basically affects the skin of two abilities and mitigates their practical function) but there are enough elements present that it can't be ignored.

Edited October 23, 2017 by Archwizard

[Archwizard]

I've been thinking a lot about Ember lately.
I'm more than well aware that there are concerns about the ultimate I have presented for her in the OP, and I always intended to change it once a better idea was presented that didn't simply involve allowing her to continue using her ultimate to run low-level missions, and continuing her lack of any use in higher level content.

A concern I've had with her for a long time is that her kit is... a bit confusing. She's got a buff that increases fire damage and casting speed, a space-clearing knockback effect that creates a ring of protection, and a projectile attack... but then she's got an ultimate that not only damages enemies at close range, but chain-applies heat procs.
It leaves one wondering what the goal with her is: is she supposed to be a caster who keeps her distance, capitalizing on Fire Blast and Fireball? Or is she supposed to be more of a close-ranged unit, capitalizing on World on Fire? The removal of her Overheat effect seemed to support the former theory (particularly given the devs' reasoning), yet World on Fire persists; this is why I initially went with the Phoenix ability, so that she could capitalize on her ranged abilities.

Ember's main issue is that all of her abilities either deal raw damage or apply a non-stacking status proc; once she reaches a certain level of content, her abilities fall off hard. She's designed to be a Warframe who capitalizes on fighting low- or non-armored targets, but that leaves her with no particular advantage over any other Warframe, or any real means of keeping up with enemies as their level increases. If all of her abilities do the same thing, and none stack, why bother wasting energy on anything but the most efficient one?
What I've always found curious about her is, between the caster philosophy and the fact that every one of her abilities uses Power Strength (with Accelerant essentially allowing them to double-dip into it!), she should by all rights be one of the quintessential Power Strength-focused frames... but with her lack of scaling, the majority of her use is for players to run ahead on low-level alerts and detonate every enemy with World on Fire before anyone else even sees so much as a health bar.
The addition of a knockback to Fire Blast helps by giving her a situational "oh sh!t" tool, but it still works against World on Fire until you reach a certain amount of range; it still leaves her other damage abilities out in the cold as level continues, in spite of Accelerant.

Now of course, one of the easiest ways to fix Ember would be to just have her powers melt through armor, like Frost and a half dozen other frames get - but this goes directly against her philosophy of being designed to deal with low-armor targets, like Infested and Corpus, and still doesn't resolve the issue of World on Fire. You could limit World on Fire to line of sight, but realistically speaking, that hardly even qualifies as a bandaid given how rarely it targets enemies out of Ember's line of sight to begin with.

The best option for a skill to bite non-armored targets is for it to deal damage based on the target's maximum health, but the question is where to fit that in. While the obvious instinct is to give it to Fireball in order to encourage its use, one must bear in mind that with Accelerant available to Ember, the ability to deal %-health damage to enemies could very quickly be gamed to near instantly slay enemies (particularly with the already-popular Corrosive Projection stacking and the recent surge in Shield Disruptions).

There is precedent for Ember's Power Strength to simply grow through some means, but by how much? And for how long? While there is the popular suggestion to replace her passive with one for her Power Strength to increase every time she inflicts a Heat proc, this merely emphasizes rapidly burning a quantity of targets, which doesn't necessarily grow at the same rate as their quality (ie level). Should she simply recycle Nidus by riding a similar passive for the entire mission?

Something I want to see with her ultimate is for it to not be a means to slay enemies in itself, but a tool to alter her other abilities; no longer passively burning foes, but empowering her Fireball to stand up to Exalted abilities. Perhaps as a variation on Mend & Maim, wherein every enemy who dies within range of her while it's active increases her Power Strength relative to its health or level, but also grants higher energy demands the longer it remains active.
... but part of me also feels that giving her that and Accelerant would be a little weird, stacking two separate buffs for her two other skills.

[Valaska]

On 3/20/2014 at 7:53 PM, Archwizard said:

Saryn
- Spores will now pop at least one spore if the target receives Toxin damage.
- Venom Dose applies its effects to all allies in a radius around a friendly target.
- Molt inherits Saryn's maximum health, armor and shield values and adds them to its own.
- Toxic Lash no longer has any effect on blocking with melee weapons. Instead, Saryn gains damage mitigation (armor?) at all times while Toxic Lash is active, regardless of equipped weapon. Additionally, Toxic Lash will restore energy to Saryn if Spores are popped by any means while active.
- Contagion Clouds now causes Saryn to emit a cloud of poisonous gas while Toxic Lash is active, dealing radial Toxin damage to nearby enemies.
- Miasma has a 100% status chance per tick against targets affected by Toxin and Viral procs. Damage per-tick halved, total number of ticks doubled.

I like you, good sir.

[MuscleBeach]

29 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

her philosophy of being designed to deal with low-armor targets, like Infested and Corpus, and still doesn't resolve the issue of World on Fire.

Where are you getting this philosophy from? She's a frame about fire. That's about as far as her philosophy goes.

"This is Ember, destructive and deadly.

Ember's presence on the battlefield is devastating. Mind the heat, Tenno."

The mechanics of fire are just pros and cons to her style. Not a philosophy.

 

Make World on fire grow in range every second it's on.

Reduce its starting range, it can grow to a large cap.

Reduce its damage by a lot, which won't be growing over time.

Increase the number of enemies it can hit at a time, maybe proportionally to the area increase over time.

Enemies with heat procs on them within range of WoF explode on death for moderate damage and guarantee a heat proc within a small radius. 

It's now more of a CC skill than a damage skill. Other people can now play the game and she doesn't fall off hard. Probably needs growing energy cost over time too. 

[MuscleBeach]

Atlas is in much more need of a rework than some of the frames you headlined. Here's a post with way too many good suggestions to list for him. I don't want to spam in this thread so maybe you can just participate in this thread and carry over any ideas you like to this one? One of the last few posts is basically a list of all ideas given for his Tectonics and how to change it. Petrify is another key offender talked about. Rumblers weren't talked about much but I gave plenty of suggestions in my OP and linked the other abilities to them. 

 

 

[Archwizard]

59 minutes ago, MuscleBeach said:

Where are you getting this philosophy from?

Her original description read - and continues to read - "Ember is a nightmare for light-armored targets. Ember can super-heat the air which opens up surprising crowd-control possibilities."

In spite of your suggestions, it also continues the issue of players tapping World on Fire on a low-level mission and murdering everything the instant it spawns, as well as prolonging the issue of her kit only supplying CC.

Edited November 2, 2017 by Archwizard

[MuscleBeach]

I see it, my mistake was not looking at regular ember.

4 hours ago, Archwizard said:

A concern I've had with her for a long time is that her kit is... a bit confusing. She's got a buff that increases fire damage and casting speed, a space-clearing knockback effect that creates a ring of protection, and a projectile attack... but then she's got an ultimate that not only damages enemies at close range, but chain-applies heat procs.

You say her kit has a buff, CC, defense, an attack, and WoF which does damage and cc. 

2 hours ago, Archwizard said:

In spite of your suggestions, it also continues the issue of players tapping World on Fire on a low-level mission and murdering everything the instant it spawns, as well as prolonging the issue of her kit only supplying CC.

Then you say she only provides CC in her kit? The only flavor that I can think of to add is melting armor. At least it'll make sense here as opposed to other places it's been implemented. 

Melting low lvls is a non-issue (as annoying as it is) unless you plan on changing every ability to max health % damage. I can easily take Nezha/frost/equinox/banshee and there's others and do the same thing (and for higher lvls than she can do it), the only difference is WoF does it passively. I guess you could make it a 100 energy nuke type of ability. 

Dealing damage to max health is risky from a balance perspective. It would have to be single target/very small aoe. So her Fireball is an option. I would give her a unique passive. Every heat proc from Ember's abilities melt 5% of the targets armor. This lets her WoF scale in high lvls (by providing armor stripping). I don't think you can really keep the "Nightmare for light armored targets" part at high lvls. Every Warframe falls off at high lvls (some more than others). That's the point of lvls getting higher. 

[Archwizard]

6 hours ago, MuscleBeach said:

You say her kit has a buff, CC, defense, an attack, and WoF which does damage and cc. 

On paper, yes. I was explaining that in terms of design she had the fixings for a particular playstyle, but the execution falls flat.

What "defense" does she have, other than CC? None.
What "attack" does she have? 3 abilities that compete for the same resource, deal a flat amount of damage which rapidly falls off in high-level play, and apply the same DoT which doesn't stack. They're all intended essentially as vehicles for the same status effect, where one vehicle would suffice.
What "buff" does she have? An increase to Heat damage and only the Heat damage, which will be majorly applicable to Ember herself 90% of the time (even anti-Infested builds usually have as much unaffected Slash or Corrosive damage on their weapons as Heat, if not more), and only delays the time it takes for her affected abilities to fall off for a few extra levels (which, between armor's exponential effect on EHP and shields' resistance to Heat, ain't much).

6 hours ago, MuscleBeach said:

Then you say she only provides CC in her kit?

At higher levels, yes. As you yourself pointed out, killing low-level enemies en masse is virtually meaningless in the long run. (My concern is primarily that it doesn't gel with her other abilities, and there's virtually no incentive to use half of her kit once WoF's up. So far your only suggestion for this is to turn it into more of a CC, despite the fact that she has no shortage of CC.)

Pick a level, any level. Let's say... your standard T3 Sortie!
Volt provides CC, buffs mobility and damage output with all weapons, and drops barriers for the team. Frost is tanky, breaks armor, and provides CC and barriers to the team. Saryn is tanky, deals scaling damage and stacking DoTs, can restore her own energy, provides consistent Viral procs, and CCs by means of her decoy. Atlas is tanky, deals scaling damage, and provides barriers and CC to the team. Mag restores shields and energy, breaks armor (albeit not well), increases damage, and provides damage-reflecting barriers and CC to the team. Oberon restores health, increases armor and status resistance, deals scaling damage, breaks armor, cancels Eximus/Ancient auras, and provides CC to the team. Nyx can resist damage, steal or cancel enemy buffs/auras, and provides CC to the team. Nova provides a damage buff, has a scaling attack, increases mobility, provides CC and as we recently learned, even buffs her own EHP. Banshee increases damage significantly, has stealth aids, and provides CC to the team. Limbo can be selectively invulnerable, extends this invulnerability to the team, and has the strongest CC in the game.  

Ember provides CC by means of a status proc some enemies can ignore, and casts a situational damage buff, mostly for herself. She's not that tanky, she has no other supportive skills, and her ability damage doesn't scale.

Why should I take her over another frame? At this point, expressly because I can cast World on Fire once in a low-level exterminate alert and be out of there in under 2 minutes. And even then, Equinox, Nezha and Speed Volt are pretty heavy competition.

Edited November 2, 2017 by Archwizard

[EpicBred]

I would say her 4 should just melt each enemies defense that is currently affected by a heat proc / burning (in a large radius around her). If an enemy has no armor, it should take away a percentage of the targets current health.

As a new passive to help with that: the duration of heat procs ember inflicts is doubled.

I dont know if all of embers abilities have 100% status chance, but i think they should.

 

[Archwizard]

1 minute ago, EpicBred said:

I would say her 4 should just melt each enemies defense that is currently affected by a heat proc / burning (in a large radius around her). If an enemy has no armor, it should take away a percentage of the targets current health.

Still worried about the ongoing issue of not having a reason to use her other damaging abilities, particularly Fireball. Even if you make it so WoF can't place procs of its own anymore, Fire Blast is a means to easily proc everyone around you.

2 minutes ago, EpicBred said:

I dont know if all of embers abilities have 100% status chance, but i think they should.

Fireball only does if it hits you directly, its splash zone has a 50% status chance, Fire Blast's wave is guaranteed while the ring has 0% without the augment, and WoF's is 35% affected by Power Strength.

[MuscleBeach]

8 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Atlas is tanky, deals scaling damage, and provides barriers and CC to the team.

I wouldn't call the combo counter scaling damage as that's not really the kind of scaling damage we all refer to. Technically, everyone with a sniper or melee weapon deals scaling damage. His barrier can shield half of a corpus MD console and that's about it. It's two warframes wide and requires an augment to do more (which if we factor in Ember's augments, she provides a damage buff to the team that's not only for heat). Atlas's CC is requires him to move slower the walking and is small, short, and slow. Yeah sure, it's in his kit and it's a CC but the point I think you're trying to make is that other frames can reliably do these things, which atlas would not be included on this one. I love Atlas and will argue his strengths and weaknesses all day. Your point wasn't missed but you did glorify some. 

6 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Still worried about the ongoing issue of not having a reason to use her other damaging abilities, particularly Fireball. Even if you make it so WoF can't place procs of its own anymore, Fire Blast is a means to easily proc everyone around you.

It seems the purpose behind her CC is Zone control. She can knock back people and keep burning them and heat CC them. Her being squishy isn't an issue, unless they wanted her to be melee focused. 

 

6 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Still worried about the ongoing issue of not having a reason to use her other damaging abilities, particularly Fireball. Even if you make it so WoF can't place procs of its own anymore, Fire Blast is a means to easily proc everyone around you.

How about these changes: 

Passive, 2 options:

1) Every heat proc by Ember reduces armor by 5%. Targets with no armor take 10% more damage from Ember's abilities. Possibly scale down her WoF damage slightly to balance.

2) Every damage tick from heat caused by Ember's abilities reduces armor by 1% and refreshing Heat on a target already affected by heat loses 5%. The refresh must be from Ember's abilities, not weapon. But the initial Heat proc can be by anything or anyone. 

Fireball: Give it the ability to reduce larger amounts of armor. Give it 10% for direct hits. 5% on splash damage. And then there's even more from the passive I gave.

Accelerant: Enemies hit by accelerant take 10% extra damage from all sources. Enemies killed while stunned by accelerant explode on death. Keep the stun mechanics the same but also add a minimum stun length of 2 seconds, affected by power strength for more reliable CC.

Fire Blast: Doesn't need to change. 

WoF: Doesn't need to change. 

Passive gives her a scaling reason to use her in high lvl missions. 

Fireball provides targeted armor stripping.

Accelerant is now a team damage buff and more reliable light CC. 

Fire Blast is there for more heat procs and zone control.

WoF is the big area but slower armor killer. 

Her defense comes from her CC and zone control. She doesn't need to put up walls or anything like that or heal herself. She shouldn't be able to do it all, no warframe should. 

[Azamagon]

18 hours ago, Archwizard said:

-snip-

Sorry about doing something like this again, but I'm really tired right now and don't really feel like repeating myself, but would still like to chime in on the Ember debatte.

To TL;DR my suggestions, I'll just quote this:

" While my ideas are far from perfect, the point is; Ember has a LOT of potential to be a fun and devastating damage dealer and CC-Warframe, and that WITHOUT being almost entirely dependant on just WoF and Accelerant. Just apply some creative and powerful debuffs on Fireball and Fire Blast, tone down WoF's attack frequency (but make it more potent when it DOES apply to a target) and Tadaaa! "

Here is the thread: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/847138-ember-tweaks-i-hope-people-would-like/

Hope it can be of any inspiration :)

 

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

I don't even like Ember currently, but that WoF rework sounds amazing.

Doo eet nao!

[Archwizard]

14 hours ago, MuscleBeach said:

I wouldn't call the combo counter scaling damage as that's not really the kind of scaling damage we all refer to.

I was referring to Landslide's melee scaling - the mods, the melee combo counter, and the ability combo counter. You can do more damage to a crowd with 50 energy worth of Landslide casts than with most ultimates. I count it.

But yes, I agree that Atlas' present design has several flaws, which are concerns that have been previously discussed within this very thread and will continue to be discussed until he receives changes. I'm not discounting him, I just haven't put him as high on the priority list.

14 hours ago, Azamagon said:

Here is the thread: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/847138-ember-tweaks-i-hope-people-would-like/

I like the direction you were going with this.

I don't agree with the concept of having every one of her abilities inflict a different buff or debuff - Fireball exploding on death, "Napalm Blast" dealing radial procs, World on Fire inflicting a shared fireball with scaling damage, on top of Accelerant. Not only would it make it difficult for players to keep all of these effects straight, but generally, I have doubts in the devs' ability to explain the minutiae of every skill just based on prior performance with Oberon's rework or Gara's release.
However, I believe we can streamline some of the benefits you were discussing: having one of her abilities inflict a Heat proc affected by the target's current health, and another that can cause Heat procs to detonate for radial damage, or even spread like... well, wildfire. With Fire Blast holding the knockback, I'd say probably have Fireball inflict the actual scaling damage and World on Fire spread; in the reverse, if we reduced the proc rate of World on Fire and had it be the means of scaling damage, players would be forced to chase an RNG attack.
... Actually, changing World on Fire to literally be "Wildfire" could be... interesting.
I appreciate the concern you have that having her stack Heat procs could be "too powerful", but the point is to give her attacks some degree of scaling, and with every attack in her kit inflicting said procs, I'd be more concerned about having them accidentally overwrite each other.

I also agree that Fire Blast needs to provide incentive for players to stand in it; it features an area-clearing tool, and if it's not going to be a chain-stunning field baseline, then who else is supposed to stand in the ring?
However, with your suggestion to have Accelerant and/or Fireball's augments add non-combining Heat damage, I disagree with the notion of it also just adding non-combining Heat damage (especially since that blatantly copies Electric Shield and Energy Shell). IMO, there's room for it to become a legitimate defensive/supportive tool.

Edited November 3, 2017 by Archwizard

[Svygor]

On 21.03.2014 at 4:53 AM, Archwizard said:

- Psychic Bolts reworked: First activation will mark enemies, a la Blade Storm. Second activation will fire homing bolts at each marked target, dealing Slash damage and throwing them backward with telekinetic force; enemies who make contact with terrain will receive damage equal to a percentage of their health, a la Snow Globe. Energy cost scales with the number of bolts fired, and is refunded for each target slain prior to launch.
- Passive replacement: All attacks against enemies within 10 yards of Nyx are treated as headshots.

Why didn't you metion Nyx's ult here? It was great before nerf. And I can't understand why DE changed this ability from good-scaling to not-scaling-at-all.
I suppose it should be changed to have much better damage scaling - 8 energy per 1000 of damage sounds like "sorry, you won't be able to kill enemies or protect yourself above lvl 100. Use Chaos instead". It should be as it was before or should apply strong debuffs to enemies within explosion radius.

Or if you think that Absorb just fine as it is, then I wondering to know how to use it on levels 100-200 and above.