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

[kennytheone]

I really got into the Frost re-tune. I posted a thread about buffing Frost's abilities not too long ago.

 

However, here's how I see it: (I do agree with most of your decisions).

 

- Freeze: 

Should not be broken by gunfire, and NOT affected by Power Duration/Strength. Freeze's the closest 1/2/3/4 enemies for 7/8/9/10 seconds. More of a very quick spam if an enemy gets into melee range. Very cheap to cast, and kind of like Avalanche on a much smaller and more power efficient scale.

 

- Ice Wave:

Cast time should be shortened, and it would be amazing if the animation would be changed to make the icicles impale the enemies instantaneously instead of waiting for the ice to go along in a line. Cold proc should still be in effect, but not frozen.

 

- Snow Globe:

I dislike the punch through idea. I think it sits where it should be. But I would like a 5 second invincibility. I just think it works better and 5 seconds just seems like a better time. I like how it's all one speed through out the entire Globe. I remember someone once saying that when a Globe breaks, it should shatter and sent out shards of Ice like Radial Javelin. Don't really agree, but would be just... AMAZING. Shatter my Globe? Eat ice.

 

- Avalanche: 

Definitely agree. The damage should be kept the same, because it's one of the best AoE damage skills for low-mid tier, and amongst one of the best ultimates for lower level enemies. As you said, the freeze should not be affected by Power Duration. Freezes enemies for 2/4/6/8 seconds or 3/5/7/9 seconds or something.

 

Overall, I feel like Frost should be buffed for more utility and maybe given some stat boost - Speed, Armor etc, which would be decided by fans. I also feel like his appearance deserves more. As a Prime, all he got was what some refer to as a 'Golden Brain Cage'. I believe there should be some re-work. After all, being an Ice Mage means that he should be meant for some nice damage, but mainly settling at great utility and defense for support.

 

Great job on the post by the way. Definitely agree with lots of it.

[taiiat]

I remember someone once saying that when a Globe breaks, it should shatter and sent out shards of Ice like Radial Javelin. Don't really agree, but would be just... AMAZING. Shatter my Globe? Eat ice.

even if it was non-functional, having Snowglobe say, shatter and crumble into piles of crunched ice would look really neat, and would be an audio and visual cue that your Snowglobe just broke.

 

as currently we only have Visual cues, your Duration timer running out if you only have one Deployed, and seeing it disappear from the world as if by magic.

 

 

so we could have Audio cues added, and you'll know that your or one of your Snowglobe(s) was destroyed by Enemy fire because it'll have shattered and crumbled.

 

and for running out of Duration on it's own, Snowglobe could melt.

[MechaKnight]

even if it was non-functional, having Snowglobe say, shatter and crumble into piles of crunched ice would look really neat, and would be an audio and visual cue that your Snowglobe just broke.

 

as currently we only have Visual cues, your Duration timer running out if you only have one Deployed, and seeing it disappear from the world as if by magic.

 

 

so we could have Audio cues added, and you'll know that your or one of your Snowglobe(s) was destroyed by Enemy fire because it'll have shattered and crumbled.

 

and for running out of Duration on it's own, Snowglobe could melt.

It's a really good idea. Molt has such a visual, and a small sound when it explodes too. The fading appearance should probably only happen at the end however, since players would get nervous when they see holes in the snowglobe. I prefer the shattering snowglobe, the noise would be much louder.

[taiiat]

It's a really good idea. Molt has such a visual, and a small sound when it explodes too. The fading appearance should probably only happen at the end however, since players would get nervous when they see holes in the snowglobe. I prefer the shattering snowglobe, the noise would be much louder.

oh it would only melt after the Duration ends, yeah.

 

but what i suggested would have both kinds :p

melting if it runs out of Duration and not Health, and shattering and crumbling if it runs out of Health and not Duration.

[Archwizard]

- Freeze: 

Should not be broken by gunfire, and NOT affected by Power Duration/Strength. Freeze's the closest 1/2/3/4 enemies for 7/8/9/10 seconds. More of a very quick spam if an enemy gets into melee range. Very cheap to cast, and kind of like Avalanche on a much smaller and more power efficient scale.

 

- Snow Globe:

I dislike the punch through idea. I think it sits where it should be. But I would like a 5 second invincibility. I just think it works better and 5 seconds just seems like a better time. I like how it's all one speed through out the entire Globe. I remember someone once saying that when a Globe breaks, it should shatter and sent out shards of Ice like Radial Javelin. Don't really agree, but would be just... AMAZING. Shatter my Globe? Eat ice.

 

The way I see it, Frost is intended as a mid- to long-range defensive frame (to make up for his abysmal mobility): his globe blocks projectiles almost completely, and much of his arsenal is ranged attacks. The idea presented in the OP with Freeze is that you would stop faraway groups of enemies who are shooting the globe to lock them down and stretch out the globe's health a bit longer; if it only affected the nearest few enemies to Frost, I'd actually argue it's a less efficient Avalanche, given the target limit alone. Regardless of actual efficiency, a Warframe's abilities should be unique and independent of one another to make up for their quantity, not just scaled up/down versions of the same thing repeated across the arsenal (part of why it's so hard to get a lock on Ember).

If it doesn't scale with Power Strength OR Duration, then Freeze becomes a CC ability that scales with only Range (and given your suggestions of a target limit and point-blank effect, that would be pointless). Worst case, it scales and is precisely no worse off than now in the event of something like Gate Crash.

 

Snow Globe, I don't think there needs to be a damaging effect if it's destroyed (although a visual indicator for if it's going to break early would be nice, already added to the OP). I don't see why it shouldn't allow attacks to Punch Through, however, given that it's a direct buff to players (as far as I can tell, enemy attacks can't naturally Punch Through, and Bombards/Railgun MOA already penetrate it anyway).

Edited September 18, 2014 by Archwizard

[Archwizard]

So, sorry to double-post (not that it's the first time, woops), but my mind is currently abuzz on the topic in light of the important date I nearly missed.

 

As of last Saturday, Nekros has officially been out for a year. In this time, I think I've only seen him in the patch notes three or four times - all for hotfixes (Shadows AI getting worse after Gradivus, Soul Punch not ragdolling properly after Damage 2.0, and Desecrate requiring corpses to cast), never for substantial qualitative improvement.

Members of DE's staff have agreed on several occasions that buffs for him are called for: the feedback thread following his release received a CHT summation last October that "Terrify needs to stun" as well as several suggestions to fine-tune Desecrate, he was last mentioned in CHT as little as 4 months ago (which as far as frame mentions have been going, he's still in the latest 3), Rebecca has stated on stream that they are very aware of the poor scaling of his non-Desecrate abilities and Scott has stated several times on streams that he will be looked at.

 

It would simply be ignorant to argue that he's fine as he is. The only thing he does well, as most consistently shown by the opinion of this community over the past year, is Desecrate (specifically the loot generation which should not exist and will continue to overshadow everything regardless of any buffs to be received). My own opinions on the irony of this statement notwithstanding, that's still 3 skills he doesn't do well, and 4 skills that simply don't work together.

For reference, try leveling an un-Forma'd Nekros (potato is fine) without even equipping Desecrate. I've done it. It's miserable. The spammy alternative hasn't been much better.

While I go directly to extremes in the OP (which I might revamp again by the time I'm done mulling this post over), I think the most important thing here is to highlight exactly what his issues are, as a reminder of the baselines we want to see.

 

I firmly believe the only solution to grant Soul Punch any legitimacy is just to replace the gimmick entirely. It was the first and, prior to Smite, the only instant-damage skill that required you to stop and directly aim at an enemy (even Freeze can be quick-fired, or aimed ahead of a distant target), which has always slowed down gameplay considerably (and is self-defeating as a 'quick' damage tool). The AoE the effect provides has always been negligible, since the secondary projectile remains hard to see. Even when first released, the sole benefit this effect provided was armor-ignoring damage - which Slash Dash and Pull also shared, but with considerable AoE and/or bonus mobility to spare. Without the armor-ignore, this amounts to a single-target ragdoll, maybe with some rare but very minor splash damage. Consider that Smite now allows the caster to knock down the target like Soul Punch, for the same targeting condition (which mind you, I still hate, especially in a Paladin's hands) and damage, but with more reliable AoE and the ability to proc Confuse and Weaken on enemies. There is simply no comparison, and nothing even remotely redeemable about Soul Punch worth saving.

People consider Nekros to be a support frame, which I will grant. So why does he have a sniping skill, where a summation or cornerstone of his skillset should be?

 

Terrify's main issue is that it completely locks you out of casting the ability (in no small part because of its central "Fear" effect), giving it an enforced targeting cap; note that I say the cap itself is not the main issue, since removing the lockout would only enforce the cap on a per cast basis. This could be solved by removing the Power In Use, or even just by making it a toggle instead. A slow effect would be nice, but even still isn't mandatory if you don't feel like you have to shoot your targets the moment they turn around (which is the whole point of a CC - breathing room, making the enemies less of an immediate threat to your allies and especially you, the epicenter of fear).

As an aside, the armor reduction is essentially useless. As I've linked several times, my math on it has shown that it caps out at 6% actual bonus damage at max rank (and only 15% with Power Strength), and even then, only against armored Grineer targets (I'd say "or Tenno", but Stalker and whatever player is stabbing me in the face would die laughing at the notion of being hit by Terrify).

 

Shadows, I still have high hopes for. Steve has stated that they are working on adding a way to give your Kubrow basic commands, and if that ends up being outside of the modding system and in the actual missions, could very well be applied to the Shadows too. Historically, the fact that Shadows have copied our enemies' "smart" AI has simply made them incompetent pets, little better than Chaos targets, where "stupid" Infested have proven much more useful given their aggressive bloodhound tendencies. The ability to coordinate them - and dare I say, tell them to ignore cover? - is simply delicious, given that the real potential of the necromantic component is the ability to make minions scale their damage to your targets.

Let's step away from the AI for a moment though; that still leaves the requirement for you to get killing blows on your targets, which you likely won't be doing quite as much of without any significant damage skills (especially if you spend most of the mission Desecrating). In addition to this, you're required to keep a mental checklist of the enemies you killed, making it significantly more involved than any other ultimate. Shadows would see more usage if the "Soul Cache" were phased out, perhaps substituting the latest party kills instead, or even the nearest corpses (provided the minion cap is removed or otherwise considered). While these would reduce the element of choice, attempts to capitalize on your ability to select specific minions required that you be picky about the battles you join and leave out minor enemies. 

There's been a long-standing suggestion to have minions raised also gain a certain number of levels. This is an easily understandable suggestion; Corpus and Grineer weapons have stats to kill one another rather than themselves. A small boost would allow risen minions to overcome their native defenses and become a more potent fighting force rather than simply a pocket Chaos. While this may not be necessary with the ability to direct minions, it would absolutely make Shadows worthy of its space as an ultimate with or without coordination.

 

As there are several ways a Nekros revamp could play out that would be absolute improvements over his current state, I ask with complete interest and sincerity: Further thoughts?

Edited September 19, 2014 by Archwizard

[taiiat]

i still say Soul Punch is damn good fun. i want that Power on a frame. it's probably too gimmicky and hollywood for Dr. Skelly Bones, but i still want a Power like that(though a better version of it, since the AoE ness happens almost never, and the ragdolling could be more forceful to be more hilarious).

 

 

the most important thing, is for Nekros to have an Ability kit that actually matches his theme, rather than making fun of his theme, and Powers that actually relate to each other at all.

 

and that means that Desecrate almost guaranteed needs to go out the window completely. it doesn't really match any theme, and we can bring the same bonus Ammo and Health stuffs from another Power in his Kit so that he still has that feature as that's pretty useful. 

 

 

just as long as we don't have a Warframe that multiplies 'droprates'. that's absurd and shouldn't exist. and if it doesn't exist, then we can finally all relax knowing that we can increase the Chances for all of those things to numbers that are completely fair, without having to worry about someone getting everything in the game in under a day from fair Chances with how Desecrate currently works.

everyone gets the same fair 'droprates'. there should be no exceptions. the closest exception we have are Resource Boosters, and i'd rather they didn't exist but i'll settle for that being the end of things like that.

 

and then Nekros can actually be a Warframe people use for fun, rather than forced to use it to make their gameplay several times easier and faster.

[kennytheone]

even if it was non-functional, having Snowglobe say, shatter and crumble into piles of crunched ice would look really neat, and would be an audio and visual cue that your Snowglobe just broke.

 

as currently we only have Visual cues, your Duration timer running out if you only have one Deployed, and seeing it disappear from the world as if by magic.

 

 

so we could have Audio cues added, and you'll know that your or one of your Snowglobe(s) was destroyed by Enemy fire because it'll have shattered and crumbled.

 

and for running out of Duration on it's own, Snowglobe could melt.

Love it. :)

[Archwizard]

I decided to compile a chart of frame roles and niches as they are now, just to see what frames are likely in the most desperate need of versatility based on their current design philosophies. While doing this chart, I found that most frames tend to branch out into three different potential roles, with different weights on each depending on their skillsets. For example, while Loki is fairly well-weighted between Mobility, Stealth and Control, Nyx's skillset heavily weights Control but has lower-weighted potential in Damage and Survival because of Absorb. I will admit that the list is fluid and open to interpretation - you may consider Rhino and Nova to be more Support-focused because of their damage boosts (and move a bunch of the 'damage' frames to 'support' as a similar result), or say that Volt's Support marker could just as easily be moved to Survivability because Electric Shield can do a bit of both. This is just a very raw idea.

 

 

The tricky part about this list was trying to maintain consistent definitions for roles, which are marked on the right-hand side. A very important note is that I ignore most direct-damage skills when marking the damage role because those serve little purpose as level increases (unless they can counter/scale with enemy resistances/output or personal weapon output), and staggers as CC because everyone and their dog can stagger (or electrocute, or panic...) but you still won't choose to play a frame because of its stagger-capacity. Because of the nerf to stealth mechanics, I feel it would also be inappropriate to mark a frame like Loki as a damage frame given that the 4x multiplier only applies to the first hit.

 

Blue ?s represent ability sets that could potentially serve either role, depending on user interpretation. Hydroid could be a mobile frame because of Tidal Surge but it's offset by Undertow's self-root effect; Rhino can deal high damage with Roar or lock down enemies with Stomp, but you'll probably build Stomp for one or the other while his mobile survivability is pretty consistent. 

Green X!s represent excellence in the marked role, primarily due to a heavy focus on it in their skillset. For example, Vauban may not branch out much, but he is the undisputed king of CC.

Yellow represents frames with below-average versatility, while Red represents overspecialization. The Yellow areas, depending on interpretation, could be offset by Green markers.

 

Excalibur is currently up for debate (as of the last CHT) and may very well be able to add a Damage marker in the near future. At present, because none of his skills can ignore armor or scale with weapon damage, he's rather weak in that department (and I'm fairly certain Radial Blind alerts enemies, which probably puts Stealth out too).

Nekros has potential to be given a Damage marker as well, but not at present; while Terrify increases damage, the damage boost on its own is incredibly low. His minions have scaling damage potential, but because of their AI limitations, they're presently more of a threat-drop and Control skill. (The sheer irony is that he has 3 Control skills but the playerbase has shown he's still more heavily weighted toward the one Support skill - although that's mostly a side-effect of an unmarked category, Meta.)

 

This leaves us with Ember. Ideally, her emphasis on damage would give her a green marker instead, but she isn't particularly excellent at the role - her one damage boost only applies to her own skills and select weapon builds that players might not even use ("But Ignis!" is great for the handful of people who are okay with being pidgeonholed into using it). This is probably the real eye-opener, since the OP tries to nudge her into a stronger Control skillset but that would still only leave her in two roles. Personally, I've always been a fan of giving her some kind of rocket propulsion to emphasize Mobility (especially since it would synergize with the rather out-of-place World on Fire). I've also seen suggestions that she could instead learn to cauterize wounds and gain a Support marker - which makes sense, given that all other elementals can use their element to increase their survivability, and Overheat was considered out of place due to her more caster-focused arsenal.

Edited September 21, 2014 by Archwizard

[Elydir]

This leaves us with Ember. Ideally, her emphasis on damage would give her a green marker instead, but she isn't particularly excellent at the role - her one damage boost only applies to her own skills and select weapon builds that players might not even use ("But Ignis!" is great for the handful of people who are okay with being pidgeonholed into using it). This is probably the real eye-opener, since the OP tries to nudge her into a stronger Control skillset but that would still only leave her in two roles. Personally, I've always been a fan of giving her some kind of rocket propulsion to emphasize Mobility (especially since it would synergize with the rather out-of-place World on Fire). I've also seen suggestions that she could instead learn to cauterize wounds and gain a Support marker - which makes sense, given that all other elementals can use their element to increase their survivability, and Overheat was considered out of place due to her more caster-focused arsenal.

 

I like Ember as an anti-infested frame, but Damage 2.0 made her pretty useless if youre fighting ancients (what they gave to weps they took from abilities). The new event highlights that shes pretty much crippled without power strength.

 

Big problem is theres no real fixing her until ability damage can scale properly.

[LukeAura]

Charts?!  Now we're getting serious. 
So it seems like most frames get 3 types of skills, and generally every frame's skillset is different. With just a few exceptions or caveats. 
Although it looks like 'control' is a more common attribute than others. While Stealth is understandably rare, it's a rather limited field.
But Support the most 'coop' 'teamplay' category is surprisingly rare as well. Although I suppose it balances out once you add in the team damage buff/enemy survivability debuffers as a form of 'offensive' support, and the numbers actually round out pretty nicely. 

Every combination should exist twice in a purely mathematial world, for both pairs of roles, and triplets of roles. However, because of stealth being a little hard to make unique, we will see some variation favouring the top three roles. One of the oddities I've noticed is that we almost never find survivability without some form of control. 
It's hard to make any sort of judgements but it seems like the the least paired roles barring stealth are Damage+Support, and mobility+support. 


I'm also questioning if Vauban is truly king of control any more. It just seems like with bleed proc, longer ranged ancient CCs, how his CC favours a more enclosed or protection heavy area due to its limited size while we've been seeing larger and more open maps and map tiles appearing that his strength has the 'meta' shifting out from under it. 
 

[Batwing]

I was remembering the ps4 trailer was it ? Anyway it was where frost used his second ability and the spikes made a deadly kind of needle sort of sound and it got me thinking what if we just work around that ?

 

Like instead of frost first ability being the way it is he would have a kind of toggle ability where he'd spray ice cycles out and it would be kind of like a ice boltor attack maybe not as strong since it's first ability but just seems cooler than his current one.

 

Then the second would be redone a bit by having the spikes be way longer and skinnier more like big needles that anything they didn't kill would snare them in place.

 

The snow globe is fine but what if it just have spikes all over it so any enemy that tried going into it would get impaled.

 

As for his forth he just has a huge aoe where giant ice cycles come out around him then explode into mall shards that pierce and shred the enemies.

 

Maybe make them do ice AND puncture so that he's not too disadvantaged against armored targets.

 

And naturally they would stick out of enemies and slow them down.

 

Got me thinking maybe the abilities of warframes could all combine 1 elemental damage with a physical type like ember with slicing fire or rhino with impact explosive charges.

 

To me it would make the abilites feel a bit more super. Not too much of a buff or anything just added damage type that would kinda make them more useful against more factions.\

 

Was just thinking about it after watching the old trailer don't take it to heart.

[taiiat]

Like instead of frost first ability being the way it is he would have a kind of toggle ability where he'd spray ice cycles out and it would be kind of like a ice boltor attack maybe not as strong since it's first ability but just seems cooler than his current one.

 

Then Ice Wave would be redone

 

As for Avalanche, giant ice cycles come out around him then explode into mall shards that pierce and shred the enemies.

 

 

Maybe make them do ice AND puncture so that he's not too disadvantaged against armored targets.

- what if Freeze was like an Ice Grenade? throwing it like Booben, except it's a ball of Ice instead of an electronic device.

and after a Timer (to possibly allow for bouncing) or just on impact, explode. anything within a few meters of the Blast would be frozen solid, and the Grenade would fire fragmentation shards of Ice in all directions. Enemies hit by these fragmentations would get an Ice Effect.

 

- i think Ice Wave is fine as is, personally.

 

- that sounds like a neater looking Ability than Avalanche has ever been. maybe Avalanche would finally look cool for once, instead of being a bad disco dance and now frosty the snowman sneezing on everyone in super low definition & quality.

 

 

that mixture of Damage Types sounds appropriate and quite balanced! i like.

 

 

oh, and did someone say Ice Cycles? ;)

Edited September 23, 2014 by taiiat

[Vaskadar]

Archwizard, I've come up with a major change for Mag's Crush that would return it to a position where it could actually be used for CC instead of a hold.

 

 

Its description would imply that the bones are broken through the magnetization of the iron in what is presumably their blood and marrow (which would also imply really really incredibly strong targeted magnetic powers that could probably crush the ship that Mag's inside, too), but let's ignore that for now. You're crushing their bones. The enemies are typically alive after suffering from Mag's tickling crush. It needs something more than just a temporary and short respite from their unrelenting onslaught.

 

What it should do is cripple targets (since their bodies are being broken), slowing them down, or inhibiting their ability to aim, or even manage slight recoil due to the extreme pain they should be suffering. Maybe make them suffer neural damage? Perhaps randomly select the crippling effect, such as nerve pain, paralysis, broken legs, broken arms, that kind of stuff.

 

What these various effects would do.

-Broken legs: cutting their run speed in half, a common after-effect of crush

-Broken arms: impairing their ability to attack, via either greater inaccuracy or weakened melee attacks, made approximately 75% weaker, a common after-effect of crush

-Nerve pain: clutching their heads for a short duration, sometimes inducing more nerve pain when trying to attack, an uncommon after-effect of crush

-Paralysis: Unable to move or attack, simply stuck on the floor, the most infrequent after-effect of crush

 

In addition to this change, I've got several possible changes for Frost (my main frame that I typically play)

 

 

Frost

 

Never actually received a buff, merely a reversion for the state of his powers, which are currently all very lackluster.

 

His 1st power could have 70% of its damage removed if Freeze was made into an AOE attack that froze targets, and slowed those breaking out of freeze after 20% to 30% health damage was received.

 

Ice Wave should function like a lingering barrier of ice, slowing all that step into its effective range. Those caught directly in the middle would get knocked back while being slowed. Deals extra damage to targets in a frozen state.

 

Avalanche should produce an expanding AOE that induces the cold proc, then freezes enemies after one to two seconds of exposure. This version should be renamed to Blizzard. Cold DoT effect added and turned into a toggle. Frozen targets can take up to 50% health damage before breaking out of freeze (if damage source is from something aside from Blizzard itself)

 

The other potential alternate for Avalanche is a rolling avalanche of ice and snow, capable of being ridden by Frost if cast mid-air. Avalanche accumulates mass with the more targets it hits. Freezes targets that have been hit by the center of the avalanche, slows all other targets while dealing cold damage to them.

Edited September 23, 2014 by Vaskadar

[LukeAura]

- what if Freeze was like an Ice Grenade? throwing it like Booben, except it's a ball of Ice instead of an electronic device.

and after a Timer (to possibly allow for bouncing) or just on impact, explode. anything within a few meters of the Blast would be frozen solid, and the Grenade would fire fragmentation shards of Ice in all directions. Enemies hit by these fragmentations would get an Ice Effect.

 

- i think Ice Wave is fine as is, personally.

 

 

oh, and did someone say Ice Cycles? ;)

I would strongly support an AOE/Shrapnel effect on Freeze like that. Would make a great addition. 

And I've got mixed feelings about Ice Wave. I think it's a decent skill, but it'd be better if it was on a different frame. It's good in general, but it's not good for Frost. He's just too slow and position independent for making good use of it. 

I want to ride my ice cycle, I want to ride my iiice! I want to ride my ice cycle, I want to ride it where I liiiike! 

[taiiat]

And I've got mixed feelings about Ice Wave. I think it's a decent skill, but it'd be better if it was on a different frame. It's good in general, but it's not good for Frost. He's just too slow and position independent for making good use of it.

i can see that i suppose. i like the Ability, just on it's own, but i could see an issue of it on a Defensive Frame.

 

though i generally can hit most of the Enemies with Ice Wave, due to Chokepoints being a common thing ;)

[Noble_Cactus]

Archwizard, I've come up with a major change for Mag's Crush that would return it to a position where it could actually be used for CC instead of a hold.

 

 

Its description would imply that the bones are broken through the magnetization of the iron in what is presumably their blood and marrow (which would also imply really really incredibly strong targeted magnetic powers that could probably crush the ship that Mag's inside, too), but let's ignore that for now. You're crushing their bones. The enemies are typically alive after suffering from Mag's tickling crush. It needs something more than just a temporary and short respite from their unrelenting onslaught.

 

What it should do is cripple targets (since their bodies are being broken), slowing them down, or inhibiting their ability to aim, or even manage slight recoil due to the extreme pain they should be suffering. Maybe make them suffer neural damage? Perhaps randomly select the crippling effect, such as nerve pain, paralysis, broken legs, broken arms, that kind of stuff.

 

What these various effects would do.

-Broken legs: cutting their run speed in half, a common after-effect of crush

-Broken arms: impairing their ability to attack, via either greater inaccuracy or weakened melee attacks, made approximately 75% weaker, a common after-effect of crush

-Nerve pain: clutching their heads for a short duration, sometimes inducing more nerve pain when trying to attack, an uncommon after-effect of crush

-Paralysis: Unable to move or attack, simply stuck on the floor, the most infrequent after-effect of crush

 

 

I like Crush afflicting enemies with a cripple, but I'm not a big fan of the random status effects. They're all beneficial, but it'd probably streamline the ability more if the effect Crush produced was predictable.

[Archwizard]

Charts?!  Now we're getting serious. 

So it seems like most frames get 3 types of skills, and generally every frame's skillset is different. With just a few exceptions or caveats. 

Although it looks like 'control' is a more common attribute than others. While Stealth is understandably rare, it's a rather limited field.

But Support the most 'coop' 'teamplay' category is surprisingly rare as well. Although I suppose it balances out once you add in the team damage buff/enemy survivability debuffers as a form of 'offensive' support, and the numbers actually round out pretty nicely. 

Every combination should exist twice in a purely mathematial world, for both pairs of roles, and triplets of roles. However, because of stealth being a little hard to make unique, we will see some variation favouring the top three roles. One of the oddities I've noticed is that we almost never find survivability without some form of control. 

It's hard to make any sort of judgements but it seems like the the least paired roles barring stealth are Damage+Support, and mobility+support. 

I'm also questioning if Vauban is truly king of control any more. It just seems like with bleed proc, longer ranged ancient CCs, how his CC favours a more enclosed or protection heavy area due to its limited size while we've been seeing larger and more open maps and map tiles appearing that his strength has the 'meta' shifting out from under it. 

 

I classified the damage buffers/survival debuffers as part of the damage role, simply because those portions are what give those roles scaling and make them viable as level increases; a 2x damage boost is roughly equal to a 1/2 health debuff, after all, which is far more deadly to a level 40 than a 300 damage fireball. One could say that Oberon has an offensive role because 3 of his skills cause some damage, but these days you're going to bring him in for his supportive functions; likewise you could say Nova is supportive, but you're mostly asking for one because of the damage (or, against all reason, the ability to speed enemies up).

 

It's not so odd to see Survival paired with Control; the ability to lock down, slow or otherwise impede enemy output is (in a game like Warframe) just as effective reduction as a skill like Overheat, only protecting more of the group. It's the basis of Frost's entire arsenal, after all - CC as a supplement to mitigation, to guard the whole group as well as himself. That said, I wouldn't argue for too much correlation on this; most frames are marked as having a Control role because they were designed to scale with and adjust to content almost purely through their CC, while comparatively few are marked for Survivability.

 

I'd argue that Vauban is still the king of CC. Bastille and Chaos are basically the standards for trade-offs in mass CC (with Undertow being an up-and-comer), even if nobody really uses Bastille anymore... because Vortex goes one step beyond for low-risk, complete enemy lockdown with no trade-off beyond the joke of a cost.

As I stated earlier - frames like Vauban and Ember who have an arsenal full of the same thing, are provided with a list of powers that just become more and more cost-efficient to perform the same feat as they go up, with little reason to use the powers below (unless you're trying to actively lock yourself out of skills using Blind Rage). This is part of why I made this thread in the first place - to try to pin down exactly the frames at risk for this and make those skills worthwhile on their own.

[Elydir]

Ice Wave should function like a lingering barrier of ice, slowing all that step into its effective range. 

 

I dont get this suggestion at all. I know its like the traps in the void, but Frost would already be able to freeze people and can do the lingering slow thing with his bubble. Ice wave is supposed to be his best form of instant damage output.

[Archwizard]

Posted in today's CHT.

 

As some explanation for the changes to the OP today -

I've repeatedly stated my firm belief that, as each frame is limited to 4 powers, each one should bring something unique to the arsenal. It's what I've said about Ember and Frost all along, and even Nekros. As a result of this, I started to see some hypocrisy in my insistence for Nekros' first skill to be a second resurrection skill, when he already has one as a jumping-off point and I've repeatedly stated that the necromancer is rather versatile.

Because of this, the OP now lists several suggestions for his first skill. Feel free to suggest your own.

Edited September 27, 2014 by Archwizard

[Phaenur]

One thing I've been thinking about re: Nekros recently (translation: for the last fifteen minutes since I noticed his name in the Hot Topics and made a post not mentioning this at all) is better offensive power that could theoretically lend synergy to his combat skills.  I'm kind of inspired by the Ghastly Wail spell in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona games - it's a nasty little trick that the devs are depressingly fond of putting on generic enemies and bosses alike.  Long story short, it instantly kills anyone who's been hit by a Fear effect.  You can probably already see where this is going.

 

An instakill is out of character for Warframe skills, but honestly - and no disrespect, Archwizard - I feel that a full-on legions-of-the-dead minon master feels a bit off for the Tenno's small-group mystique too.  Not enough to be objectionable, though, which is why the existing Shadows could stay (with some improvements, probably).  Back to the idea, though, Soul Punch or some rename of it could quite simply deal substantially increased damage and a knockdown to Terrified targets at the cost of their Terrified status.  Or, you could reverse that - Soul Punch now causes fear instead of ragdoll, while Terrify is replaced by a pulse that consumes it for damage and knockdown instead.  It could even be made that targets killed by this combo are the only ones kept around for Shadows, or at least the ones given priority in the queue.

 

I'm worried about how this would synergize with mods though: potentially too well.  Tying the fear radius and duration (in either combination) to power as well would make it harder to minmax, I think, but I've never been a theorycrafter of any sort so I could be completely off-base with that.  I'm just worried that it would be too easy to max efficiency, counterstack duration, and then spam the new combo like it was Desecrate anyway.

 

To synergize with other frames, it might be that Terrified targets take a damage boost from any power, scrapping the armor debuff.  Nekros's skills are the only ones that take full advantage of that by consuming it for massive damage and a knockdown, but he could still be used to open holes for other 'frames to take advantage of.  Of course, depending on the 'frames in question, he might find himself with no bodies left to desecrate...

[taiiat]

I'm worried about how this would synergize with mods though: potentially too well.

as long as a Power has useful bits here and there it gets from every single Mod Effect, players might min/max the crap out of it, but they'll be sacrificing quite a few options in order to maximize just one option.

 

it's okay for players to min/max, but it's not okay for them to do it without giving up something else useful to make them think twice about doing it.

[Archwizard]

An instakill is out of character for Warframe skills, but honestly - and no disrespect, Archwizard - I feel that a full-on legions-of-the-dead minon master feels a bit off for the Tenno's small-group mystique too. 

 

No disrespect taken. It's a fair concern, I simply don't think the devs are that stringent about keeping the 'mystique' - after all, Rhino and Valkyr aren't even remotely subtle, and Oberon would be considered the least ethical paladin ever for some of the things he can be put up to here.

I've always felt that the minion master and ninja archetypes could go hand-in-hand, however, without betraying either. Ninjas are supposed to fight from the shadows, unseen until the last possible moment, while a proper minion master never shows his own face to leave his mark. Both (ideally) manipulate and cripple foes before dealing the finishing blow - one just does it with a handful of zombies from around the corner while the other uses guerrilla tactics.

 

Back to the idea, though, Soul Punch or some rename of it could quite simply deal substantially increased damage and a knockdown to Terrified targets at the cost of their Terrified status.  Or, you could reverse that - Soul Punch now causes fear instead of ragdoll, while Terrify is replaced by a pulse that consumes it for damage and knockdown instead.  It could even be made that targets killed by this combo are the only ones kept around for Shadows, or at least the ones given priority in the queue.

 

While it could be interesting to toy around with, it doesn't fit Warframe's design; skills are designed to be standalone so you can be fluid in your builds without feeling the need to equip them all, but with enough synergy between them to remind you that they're from one skillset and reward you for the use of all four. I'm already giving them flak for making Accelerant's bonus too specific to Ember's skillset, and you can at least use weapons there (... hypothetically).

Some people see Zephyr as sort of blurring the line, but there's more ways than just Tail Wind for her to get up so she can Dive Bomb down. The suggestion you provide gives only one way to inflict fear, and a second skill that is only usable with the fear skill equipped. Spotting the thread yet?

Edited September 29, 2014 by Archwizard

[Elydir]

I think the Nekros stuff in the op is perfect for him. The summoning first skill seems a bit redundant, but I like the life tap one.

[Macdermott]

Archwizard, I've come up with a major change for Mag's Crush that would return it to a position where it could actually be used for CC instead of a hold.

 

 

Its description would imply that the bones are broken through the magnetization of the iron in what is presumably their blood and marrow (which would also imply really really incredibly strong targeted magnetic powers that could probably crush the ship that Mag's inside, too), but let's ignore that for now. You're crushing their bones. The enemies are typically alive after suffering from Mag's tickling crush. It needs something more than just a temporary and short respite from their unrelenting onslaught.

 

What it should do is cripple targets (since their bodies are being broken), slowing them down, or inhibiting their ability to aim, or even manage slight recoil due to the extreme pain they should be suffering. Maybe make them suffer neural damage? Perhaps randomly select the crippling effect, such as nerve pain, paralysis, broken legs, broken arms, that kind of stuff.

 

What these various effects would do.

-Broken legs: cutting their run speed in half, a common after-effect of crush

-Broken arms: impairing their ability to attack, via either greater inaccuracy or weakened melee attacks, made approximately 75% weaker, a common after-effect of crush

-Nerve pain: clutching their heads for a short duration, sometimes inducing more nerve pain when trying to attack, an uncommon after-effect of crush

-Paralysis: Unable to move or attack, simply stuck on the floor, the most infrequent after-effect of crush

 

I like this...