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

[FelisImpurrator]

 

-Well, I have to say, this is the first time I've ever seen anyone say Metamorphosis' buff is anything other than weak. It's... not something I can really think of as comparable to HoM in terms of power. Day maybe, but Night not so much. At the very least, remove the decay? It does nothing except add annoyance factor, like Pacify's falloff. Leave everything else as is, quite possibly, but... no decay. Flat duration.

 

-Hm... didn't think of that. But it's not... the easiest thing to abuse, exactly. For one thing, you'd need enough charge to overheal; you would also be left with, well, no energy. Although - wait, if that's how it works, can't that happen with Mend already, minus overshield/overheal? I don't see any extra issues that would arise from any other effects, because having it charge based on damage would be roughly equivalent to maybe killing one enemy if you're killed in the first few seconds. The difference is really just between "charge with burst DPS" and "charge with sustained DPS" and the latter scales better/is more reliable without necessarily being faster (hard cap it or set it at a rate that puts it on par with the current average rate of charging, whether you're firing a Vaykor Marelok or a Prisma Grakata?) Otherwise - still nothing to address that ironically, the survivability side has a nasty tendency to drop dead from the sheer length of the casting delay with nothing to interrupt enemy gunfire.

 

-It's not that every Range-based ability needs it - it's that Equinox's ranges are generally all bad to meh. That said, Mend/Maim is the lowest priority for any sort of range tweak - Rest/Rage needs it the most (2.5 meters is maybe the range of a polearm? And on Rest it seems to not work as well as it does on Rage, even. I could swear I've had a Simulor manual detonation hit a wider area.) and Pacify/Provoke... could use a little, maybe, but not as badly.

 

-Fair point. They should look at enemy scaling first, then. But regarding the ability, back to "practically single target sucks" it is. I would think, maybe... what you get now on Rest+Rage with maxed Stretch and Overextended (235%) should possibly be what you get with a maxed Stretch alone, and Stretch+OE going beyond that. Or if that's too much, since I don't know the numbers (and particularly, don't know how large it would be at about a 5m base instead of 2.5), the value of Overextended alone (190%) right now should be the range with Stretch alone. Other than that and some actual consistency on how Rest's status effect actually works in relation to everything (including other CC), that's all it really needs, I suppose.

[xLordKogax]

I really dig the stealth rank drops I really play stealth solo since noone is patient and coordinated in Warframe.

 

I run stealth without ASH/LOKI cuz Invisibility makes stealth cheap and broken, I feel more chalenged and enjoy playing with Saryn Mag and sometimes Limbo in stealth

 

+1^ for the Stealth idea

[Archwizard]

-snip-

 

- I'm not trying to say it isn't weak now (it's more to give the swap button something that can be leveled - somewhere between fringe bonus and afterthought, really). Simply that with your changes to make it cheap, long-lasting and potent (the "not unsubstantial" to which I referred), it'd outclass virtually every other ability in the game in terms of cost effectiveness. The decay effect is actively set to diminish the value of it, so that it's only worth 25 energy, hence the comparison to Hall of Mirrors trying the same.

- Are you saying abilities should be easy to abuse?

 

Combining the next two points into one because I can no longer address them singularly:

- Whatever change you place upon Rage is going to be weighed against other 25 energy abilities available to other frames. If you increase the range substantially, you change expectations for other abilities to be on-par with its effectiveness for the same cost. They bumped up the cost of Molt for adding some damage on detonation, so they stick stringently to this law of cost effectiveness, and I fully expect they would do the same in the case of Rest/Rage.

[ShardsSuperior]

So after building Saryn for Venom (What? I kid you not, Saryn is a normal, 4-ability frame.)

 

I think Venom needs a bit of extra utility. The Viral proc is definitely nice, but after that, it's still a very damaging ability dealing 900 damage (!) over a 15 s span, unmodded. However, Warframe is an extremely fast paced game. You can't wait 15 sec for an enemy to die; it's going to be killed in less than 1 second by your teammates or your weapons.

So there needs to be an incentive to use Venom, other than Viral proc, which is also unreliable, depending on RNG to get the proc.

 

If Venom just had a stacking slow on the enemy, it would be much more useful. Each spore would slow the enemy 10-15%, so a full complement of 6 spores would give a 60% slow. After all, the enemies are now basically carrying around head-sized tumors on their bodies.

[FelisImpurrator]

 

-I already said - leave everything else alone, take away the decay, because the decay takes away too much from it and puts it in borderline-useless territory. As of now, the only one of those things it is is arguably cheap; any power it has rots away in the blink of an eye. Remove decay, and its current stats are perfectly fine. That, or make it 10 energy and leave the decay. Either/or.

 

-Also, not the point. The point was that I highly doubt it WOULD be easy to abuse, because with the right numerical rates (and most certainly not scaling 1:1 with damage dealt, that would be insanity with a Dread or something) the only thing those changes would do is provide more CC and more reliable charging... that, and from what we were originally shown, it was pretty heavily implied that the DoT was supposed to be able to charge the thing on more than a very lucky shot.

 

-Bump that sucker up to 30-35 - would be acceptable in my books. But honestly, no ability should be effectively single-target without max range in a game where single-target is straight up awful, although that's a different discussion. That said, maybe the Rest thing is actually some kind of bug or perception issue, but I'm not sure how to test it.

Edited August 31, 2015 by FelisImpurrator

[Hammahness808]

I take public transport and have read through all my books so sat around, thinking about abilities and possible needed changes.

 

Silence - Instead of 75 energy for a 25s duration. I'd like to see it's duration and cost both halved - or around 10 seconds for 35 energy. Instead of using a negative duration build or having two skills that are fire and forget, it would become more useful in my eyes. Alternatively, make it an energy drain skill, 25 to cast and 6 energy drain per second.

 

Well of life - Gets over shadowed by blessing at level 10. Had a few ideas that I wrote down.

-Replaced by a direct damage ability, somewhere in the range of 300-500 and has a debuff on armor/shield, speed, or damage.

-Replaced by "Trinity's Mark", where when the enemy is killed, their "lifeforce" is spread to Trinity and her allies within a certain range (mini blessing).

-Well of Life can provide Overhealth, which I'm pretty sure might've been suggested already.

 

 

Tail Wind/Dive Bomb - Jumping on the bandwagon about this ability, it should be merged and just wanted to suggest an ability to take place of Dive Bomb. "Gust" (or whatever else is a good name). Zephyr summons a large hallway of wind, somewhere in the area of 20m long and 10-15m wide. Enemies affected by "Gust" are buffeted and held in place or pushed back (weaker enemies), they will also receive 800 slash damage over 4 ticks with a 30% chance of proc'ing.

[tyranno66]

While I do agree with a substantial amount of what you say, the desecrate alt ability seems... iffy to me. When I think viral I think of a type of poison, viruses, not something to do with necromancy (something that fits a lot better with Saryn). Coming from a thread about reworking Nekros, I think his desecrate alt could be more like you setting up the corpses as mines. Basically, whenever an enemy walks near a corpse, said corpse latches onto it dealing damage and decreasing shields/armor(maybe just completely removing it altogether). And as for the healing, it never really struck a note with me. While yes it could be justifiable, you have other frames that can do the same thing/do it better. Equinox, Trinity and Oberon come off at the top of my head.  

[Archwizard]

-Well of Life can provide Overhealth, which I'm pretty sure might've been suggested already.

 

Okay, since you and Taiiat have both suggested this:

 

Any idea precisely on how that would work? Keep in mind that unlike Overshields (which are purely to add incentive to restore effects on an already-regenerating health pool), regular Health is affected by Armor. Since Health already doesn't regenerate without specific abilities or mods in effect, "Overhealth" is just bonus health, which would be indistinguishable from Chroma's forte.

 

While I do agree with a substantial amount of what you say, the desecrate alt ability seems... iffy to me. When I think viral I think of a type of poison, viruses, not something to do with necromancy (something that fits a lot better with Saryn). 

 

Viral damage actually feels like the perfect aesthetic for Nekros. Consider:

- Many RPGs feature Necromancers being able to debilitate enemies with damage-over-time effects, like poison and disease. While damage-over-time is more Saryn and Ember's job, debilitation is not solely the realm of any one frame (a realm Terrify pulls Nekros into).

- Zombie outbreaks are typically connected to disease; case in point, the Infested and Technocyte Virus (the faction Nekros "comes from"). Viral damage is also weakest against the Infested (because why would he want to kill a zombie?), and strongest against "living" targets that would be ripe for a Necromancer to target.

- Viral status actively saps the target's health - as if their life force was stolen.

- Necromancers and Paladins are thematic opposites to one another: the black mage who defiles versus the white knight who consecrates. Oberon wields Radiation damage (made up of Heat and Electric); Viral damage is its inversion, composed of the two opposing elements.

 

Keep in mind: Oberon and Mirage share Warframe's position of Radiation elemental, and Chroma shares a seat with the core elements. Saryn and Nekros can share the Viral element.

 

I sort of disagree with attempting to use corpses as a resource in Warframe, simply because of how long they actually last - as we've seen with the current iteration of Desecrate. You're creating a trap that only has a 10 second window of opportunity and can end prematurely. You could have affected corpses affected by Duration, but then you risk overloading the map in the case of a mass homicide (don't get me started on how that would interact with Molecular Prime).

 

As far as the healing, keep in mind: Renewal has travel and pulse time, Mend is costly and needs to be charged up, and Siphon Life would be affected by targets' damage taken; it's hard to say any one is "better" (although comparing anything to Blessing - since it can do the same job, but better - may as well mean no healing for anyone but Trinity). Furthermore, healing is already a part of Nekros' kit through Desecrate - the main issue being that it's not accessible to his pets; he's the one frame who could have been designed around having a full party at all times, and he has the one form of support function that cannot capitalize on this fact. Plus, it would greatly increase the value of Shield of Shadows.

If anything, I'm worried that the effect might be considered too powerful, since aiming it into a crowd means a spammable full heal at a lower cost than Blessing (albeit lower range too), with a constant debuff to match Blessing's scaling buff. Granting, all healing effects only have to work up to the set limit achievable by Warframes anyway.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Archwizard

[Hammahness808]

Any idea precisely on how that would work? Keep in mind that unlike Overshields (which are purely to add incentive to restore effects on an already-regenerating health pool), regular Health is affected by Armor.

Simple cap of maybe 600-1000.

[tyranno66]

-snip-

Thank you for the well articulated and thought out reply. I see where you're coming from and I do agree. While I also see where you're coming from with the corpse idea, that could be prevented by having a cap on how many corpses you affect at a time, similar to what terrify does at this point. And come to think of it, there was an idea I had about terrify that would be suitable for an augment mod at the very least. It basically is that the "fear" would be infectious, giving him a great opportunity to do massive CC.

Edited September 2, 2015 by tyranno66

[TheBrsrkr]

Simple cap of maybe 600-1000.

Now put that on Valkyr.

[taiiat]

which would be indistinguishable from Chroma's forte.

and, only one Warframe is allowed to interface with Health Bonuses?

there's two types of bonuses that we can/could interface with:

- bonus Health or Shields, which increases your Maximum Shields. these must be clamped more strictly, as other Abilities and such will consider you to have more Health or Shields.

- OverShields/Health. a temporary bonus that does not interface with anything else. it does not increase your actual Maximum, it is a temporary extra. interfacing with this can be looser because of that, as Armor is the only thing which can interface with OverHealth.

even then though, it's not actually increasing your Maximum Health, so if you have Armor to make it last longer, cool beans. you won't be getting it back.

alternatively, OverHealth can be unaffected by Armor. but i don't really see that being necessary.

what it really is, is a different flavor of Healing. a flavor that Blessing doesn't already do, meaning Well of Life would actually have purpose other than to combo with Energy Vampire(a combo which had better not disappear!)

Edit:

ow put that on Valkyr.

not that i condone the existence of this Ability, but put the maximum amount of OverShields on Mesa, for use with Shatter Shield.

it's no different.

Edited September 2, 2015 by taiiat

[Archwizard]

and, only one Warframe is allowed to interface with Health Bonuses?

 

No, but when it's supposed to be that one Warframe's main utility, giving it to everyone sort of devalues the original utility. Handled poorly, it leads to serial escalation (which I believe Overhealth is the first chainlink in) as we scramble towards the goal of creating something unique but equally valuable.

 

Keeping in mind that there is virtually no comparison between Overshields and Chroma's Shield buff, which is something that should be maintained in the event of an actual Overhealth gain.

 

- OverShields/Health. a temporary bonus that does not interface with anything else. it does not increase your actual Maximum, it is a temporary extra. interfacing with this can be looser because of that, as Armor is the only thing which can interface with OverHealth.

even then though, it's not actually increasing your Maximum Health, so if you have Armor to make it last longer, cool beans. you won't be getting it back.

alternatively, OverHealth can be unaffected by Armor. but i don't really see that being necessary.

what it really is, is a different flavor of Healing. a flavor that Blessing doesn't already do, meaning Well of Life would actually have purpose other than to combo with Energy Vampire(a combo which had better not disappear!)

 

- If it is affected by armor, it'd progressively become more insanely powerful in the hands of an actual armor frame - Valkyr as Brsrkr pointed out, or perhaps Chroma. The point of Overshields gaining a flat cap is so that nobody can mod them to passively be stronger 100% of the time.

- If it isn't affected by armor, what job does it do that Overshields cannot, beyond stacking more flat EHP to your frame apropos of zero mods? "Well it's layered behind shields this time" does not inspire much in the way of unique attributes; like I was saying, that just sounds like serial escalation in the arms race that is survivability.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Archwizard

[Elydir]

OverHealth

 

I dont think health works that way.

 

It makes sense for you to overcharge shields because theyre technological, they even break and stop regenerating if you do, but not health. Health is organnic. Overcharging it till it breaks would just be bad.

[taiiat]

Keeping in mind that there is virtually no comparison between Overshields and Chroma's Shield buff, which is something that should be maintained in the event of an actual Overhealth gain.

the Health Bonus Fire Chroma currently gives is actually increasing your Current and Maximum Health.

OverHealth would not.

Life Leeching/Healing works on Health.

OverHealth would not.

the same as OverShields here, but a Health flavor.

and that doesn't make much sense. having alternate types of things makes the original pointless.

so, we have a lot of Abilities that are pointless, then? more than one Warframe is capable of Healing, more than one Warframe is capable of disabling Enemies, more than one Warframe is capable of Killing Enemies. more than one Warframe is capable of debuffing Enemies.

there's only a handful of basic facets to interface with across all Abilities. more of them can only help, not hurt.

if Abilities step on each other's toes, that only shows us that we've designed poor Abilities.

realism

N/A.

almost nothing in Warframe is realistic at all. irrelevant.

only relevant for Burst Weapons and Melee because the way those are used and function in reality is superior to 99% of Games. so making more realistic is a benefit Gameplay wise.

Edited September 2, 2015 by taiiat

[Hammahness808]

I dont think health works that way.

 

It makes sense for you to overcharge shields because theyre technological, they even break and stop regenerating if you do, but not health. Health is organnic. Overcharging it till it breaks would just be bad.

b-but...but...space magic....

 

 

Space magic aside, you have a point. Maybe instead of Overhealth, a hyper hp-regen buff could be acquired for a set duration. Could almost do the same thing and wouldn't be so outlandish. However, it would overshadow the life steal. Maybe remove the 10x health modifier and give the hp-regen buff on kill to all allies within a certain radius.

Edited September 3, 2015 by TGKazein

[taiiat]

Maybe remove the 10x health modifier

and Kill Well of Life + Energy Vampire?

:(

no thanks.

what little Ability Synergy we have in Warframe, i will claw at to retain. we have so little, losing any is a huge loss.

[Archwizard]

and Kill Well of Life + Energy Vampire?

:(

no thanks.

what little Ability Synergy we have in Warframe, i will claw at to retain. we have so little, losing any is a huge loss.

 

So create a new kind of synergy then.

 

Well of Life+Energy Vampire is blatantly overpowered, we're positive it's on their radar and I'm surprised we haven't seen more action taken against it (probably because Trinity is already a sore spot for players), but I fully expect it. You shouldn't hold onto it forever.

[Archwizard]

Something just hit me that I've already added to the OP: The perfect augment for the life drain replacement for Desecrate.

 

In the past I've tried to make it so Despoil's replacement would be able to accommodate builds made specifically for the current iteration of Desecrate. The trouble with that being... just look at Pool of Life. It added nothing new to the kit since he already had a healing ability, making it an equally dull augment nobody would try to get excited for. I sort of gave up on it for a while.

 

Recently I've been considering the pillars of what makes a necromancer a necromancer, and why I've been so insistent on this specific form of replacement for Desecrate. The idea was that the life drain would become a way to bolster your minions so they'd last longer; the trouble with that being, a lot of complaints have been made about Shadows only lasting up to a set amount of time.

 

Recently, we've had some unusual developments to the balance of Warframe, resulting in a drastic shift in the paradigm. Frost's Snow Globe now directly acknowledges the specific effects of another ability, Freeze, where previously skills were left as broad as possible. Equinox possesses the first ability that changes the effects of her other skills, and many suggestions have been made for the same to apply to Saryn. The development toolbox, in terms of set precedents, is growing.

 

So, in the same vein as Eternal War and Cataclysmic Continuum and Perpetual Vortex, the suggested life drain skill will now increase the Duration of one of Nekros' skills - the twist being, it affects his ultimate, rather than the activated skill in question.

Something I think people undervalue about these particular types of augments is, they can directly alter how players can mod their toolkit. You can break the "best" build by subbing out a Duration mod for them and just keep wailing on enemies to your heart's content. With the increasing value of other stats as they are in the rework in the OP, some space should be made for freedom within the build - providing Duration independent of Duration.

 

In the broadest sense, it directly addresses the goal I set for Siphon Life in the cleanest possible manner.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Archwizard

[Drazhya]

Going back to Limbo, here's an idea for a kit:

 

1st: Banish. Works as it currently does, except holding the button down causes it to self-cast.

 

3rd: Rift Surge. Cone-shaped AoE that deals damage, knocks affected enemies down and sends them to the Rift. Maybe with a damage multiplier as well (as a cone, it's easy to cast, effective at aoe and fairly well aimable, though you might need to get closer than you would if it was a targetable sphere)

 

4th: Cataclysm. Works as it currently does, maybe. I'm not entirely happy with the ability, but it's alright, I guess. Might have ideas later.

 

With all Rifting needs met, this leaves the 2nd as something of a wild card (could be just about anything). So, what else could be given to Limbo? Personally, I want him to be a bit more dynamic. I want him to do something more than just what this other three abilities offer. So, a couple possibilities.

 

Separate Dimensions: Causes all that are inside the Rift to be invisible to all outside the Rift for a while (and maybe vice versa). I'd like another invisibility frame, and making it interact heavily with his other abilities sets it out nicely from Loki's and Ash's abilities.

 

Rift Swap: Either Limbo or the target need to be outside the Rift, and the other inside the Rift. Limbo and the target swap locations, and one goes into the Rift (with full remaining duration) and the other leaves it (maybe a bit complicated). Same thing, and would like another teleporter.

 

 

Edit: Also, regarding Hydroid, and specifically Tentacle Swarm, there's an idea I had. It would basically be a complete rework, but anyway:

Visually, the ability forms a ring of large tentacles, filled with small tentacles. Enemies inside the ring are slowed, and maybe take a bit of damage over time from the small tentacles. The large tentacles, meanwhile, will thrash around. They will not, however, grab enemies they contact. Instead, they will knock them down, and sometimes pin them in place. Less unreliable, and much easier to kill affected targets

Edited September 5, 2015 by Drazhya

[FelisImpurrator]

1st: Banish. Works as it currently does, except holding the button down causes it to self-cast.

I quite literally just woke up, but I will say that another thread reminded me of something I never thought of.

 

While I love the possibilities afforded by hold-casts, I don't think it works on consoles due to the way the power menu is set up. So I think that's off the table.

 

The rest, I'm a bit too sleepy to look into right now.

[Archwizard]

Edit: Also, regarding Hydroid, and specifically Tentacle Swarm, there's an idea I had. It would basically be a complete rework, but anyway:

Visually, the ability forms a ring of large tentacles, filled with small tentacles. Enemies inside the ring are slowed, and maybe take a bit of damage over time from the small tentacles. The large tentacles, meanwhile, will thrash around. They will not, however, grab enemies they contact. Instead, they will knock them down, and sometimes pin them in place. Less unreliable, and much easier to kill affected targets

 

Part of Hydroid's problem is his present lack of reliability.

 

Advertising that a change will make him even less reliable doesn't sound particularly promising.

Edited September 9, 2015 by Archwizard

[Elydir]

So, in the same vein as Eternal War and Cataclysmic Continuum and Perpetual Vortex, the suggested life drain skill will now increase the Duration of one of Nekros' skills - the twist being, it affects his ultimate, rather than the activated skill in question.

 

Oooooh, I like it. You can pump energy into keeping a really good comp up.

[Archwizard]

Oooooh, I like it. You can pump energy into keeping a really good comp up.

 

I'm mostly just concerned with how the conversion rate would work.

 

On the one-hand, it could be based on how many targets you hit with it. Perhaps X sec bonus for each hit, or for each enemy you kill while under the effects of the Viral proc. Seems really easy to abuse though, given that augments have to have an effect you can rank up.

 

I think the best solution is to have it extend by a low amount (5-6 sec?) each time you cast the ability, but then you could just be spamming the button with high efficiency, hitting nobody, constantly gaining duration. Not a huge issue, just something of a head-scratcher.

Edited September 12, 2015 by Archwizard

[Elydir]

-snip-

 

I'm sure it wouldnt be that hard to program your best solution so it only works if the cast damages someone.