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

[Aquasurge]

16 hours ago, ChronoEclipse said:

EDIT: Ohey, Total Eclipse should totally affect Companions. That'd even give it a use in solo play. _{Totally not suggesting this because I want to see my Carrier become even more of a world-destroying monster.}

 

Thoughts for Volt, because I clearly don’t know when to stop:

Normalize the effectiveness levels between Overload with appliances and Overload without. I suppose this isn’t necessary, but it'd be awfully nice.

Hold-cast for Electric Shield sticks it to you. The time for the animation to place the shield is roughly the same as Ivara’s Quiver draw, so that seems like a good baseline for how long a “hold” needs to be. To avoid excessive self-buffing, I think it’s reasonable that Volt drop the currently-held shield if he hold-casts another one.

Give him a “charge” mechanic. Volt gains “charges” by delivering electric procs, killing enemies with abilities, and hitting with melee.

Volt loses 1% of his accumulated charges every second, with them adding to his current energy at some exchange rate.

While Volt has charges, his effective power strength is [modded value + charges]%. (It might also be reasonable to split the benefit 50/50 between duration and power.)

This gives Volt an effectively free source of energy for just fighting, which scales to the amount of stuff he’s doing. His abilities being relatively lackluster is mostly resolved by his improved energy economy and ability to boost his power strength to as-yet-unknown heights.

 

This also gives the benefit of not messing up any of Volt’s existing mechanics, while allowing him to take a more active “black mage” and “alternative to gunplay” sword-mage style of combat.

that is a great passive to increase his survivability. however it may need to have a cap to the charge meter as to not have an op volt if the rate is to high.

but may i say, that is one of the best ideas for volt to date.

Edited February 29, 2016 by Aquasurge
second thoughts

[Elydir]

16 hours ago, ChronoEclipse said:

This also gives the benefit of not messing up any of Volt’s existing mechanics

Overload kinda needs to be messed up though. Theres nothing redeeming about it.

If you normalize its effects without the electronics, theres nothing unique about it, its just radial electric procs. Stunning is what Shocks for, and neither of them stuns long enough to revive someone anyway. I'd rather have something else in Overloads slot, and so would all of reddit.

[Aquasurge]

8 minutes ago, Annon5150 said:

Overload kinda needs to be messed up though. Theres nothing redeeming about it.

If you normalize its effects without the electronics, theres nothing unique about it, its just radial electric procs. Stunning is what Shocks for, and neither of them stuns long enough to revive someone anyway. I'd rather have something else in Overloads slot, and so would all of reddit.

lol, so true.

[--Q--uaint]

1 hour ago, Annon5150 said:

Overload kinda needs to be messed up though. Theres nothing redeeming about it.

If you normalize its effects without the electronics, theres nothing unique about it, its just radial atomic procs. Stunning is what Shocks for, and neither of them stuns long enough to revive someone anyway. I'd rather have something else in Overloads slot, and so would all of reddit.

Overload, without appliances, is much more damaging than Shock will ever be. This is particularly obvious when you consider that Overload deals more damage per pulse than Shock does with a full cast… but Overload hits a lot more area while costing the same as casting 4 Shocks.

It’s much more damage-efficient and damaging, on a per-target basis, with the ability to hit a huge AoE.

Given my “charges” mechanic, Volt will have enough energy coming in to use Overload a lot, and enough power strength to make it matter regardless of his modded stat… Overload with “charges” gives Volt a real chance to actually compete with Saryn. His damage will be lower (unless he gets a lot of charges), but he will be able to hit a larger area and cast more often.

 

Actually, the “charges” mechanic would jive more nicely with power-effecting mods if the formula went <modded stat>*(1+<charges>/100). This makes it so there’s a real decision between range, duration, and power strength. The “charges” will trivialize efficiency, but that’s kinda what they're designed to do. I suppose you could subtract <modded energy cost> charges each time you cast a power… that'd make it a lot more relevant how much efficiency you have.

I suppose the question now is, should I edit my other post to add these changes, or just figure Arch will read both?

[RealPandemonium]

2 hours ago, Annon5150 said:

Overload kinda needs to be messed up though. Theres nothing redeeming about it.

If you normalize its effects without the electronics, theres nothing unique about it, its just radial electric procs. Stunning is what Shocks for, and neither of them stuns long enough to revive someone anyway. I'd rather have something else in Overloads slot, and so would all of reddit.

Untrue.  Overload's biggest problem is that its pulses are not spread far enough apart, so many of its stuns are overridden by an existing stun animation.  I propose that the pulses be spread out enough that they don't overlap, and damage per pulse increased to compensate for the loss of DPS (225 -> 300.)  Volt could also use a means of pulling enemies together so that his electrical procs do extra damage.  Overload's initial damage instance could suck nearby enemies in, allowing Volt to dive into a hot area and pull a bunch of enemies together for massive damage on the subsesquent pulses.

Electronics should also recharge at 2.5% power per second (full recharge after 1 minute) and perhaps after the first Overload, electronics could charge up to or 2x their original charge, allowing Volt to store up massive nukes by spacing out casts.

The maxcase of my proposal is pretty big.  Assuming you wait 2 minutes before recasting Overload (such as on a Defense mission) and you pull 5 enemies within 5m of each other: 300 * 3 = 900

900 + (.5 * 900 * 5) =  3150

That's 3150 damage before power strength, but we haven't added the bonus damage from electronics.

 Each electronic in range of that group will be adding 3 arcs of 500 + (500 * .5 * 5) = 1750.  1750 * 3 =  5250 extra damage per electronic.

If enemies are humanoid (pretty much all Grineer and Corpus, and some Infested as well) they take double damage from the proc explosions since they always headshot.

900 + (.5 * 900 * 5 * 2) = 4500 base damage.  Damage from each electronic is boosted to 500 + (500 * .5 * 5 * 2) * 3 = 9000.

A traditional nuke build would have 227% power strength.  In the above scenario (1 electronic nearby, 5 humanoid enemies within 5m of each other) one cast of Overload would deal 10215 damage without electronics and 9000 damage from the electronic, for a total of 19215.  That's a pretty huge amount of damage for 25 energy, no?  The damage increases by 50% of base per enemy in the cluster (100% of base on humanoid enemies,) so this can't even be considered a maxcase.  Even without the electronics in the equation, Overload will still out-damage every other nuke so long as enough enemies are bunched up.

Overload would also stun enemies for around 9 seconds per cast, as well, due to the successive stuns from the procs chaining properly.

A few tweaks would make Overload unquestionably strong (and also creating some gameplay) without requiring an overhaul.  

 

[Archwizard]

44 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

Overload, without appliances, is much more damaging than Shock will ever be.

Irrelevant, since Electrical damage is one of the hardest hit by armor reduction, and flat damaging abilities are virtually worthless past mid-level anyway. At which point, effects like Shock and Overload are reduced to fancy applicators for electric status. If the main problems with Volt's kit are survivability and damage scalability, then wasting space on redundancy is not a good way to start addressing the two.

Between the two, Overload's the most gimmicky (with the electronics scaling), and has the least synergy within the kit. Given that chain lightning effects are something of a staple with electric casters throughout gaming, and Shock can be used while moving, I'd say Shock is more secure than Overload is in the position they compete for.

20 hours ago, ChronoEclipse said:

Give him a “charge” mechanic. Volt gains “charges” by delivering electric procs, killing enemies with abilities, and hitting with melee.

Volt loses 1% of his accumulated charges every second, with them adding to his current energy at some exchange rate.

While Volt has charges, his effective power strength is [modded value + charges]%. (It might also be reasonable to split the benefit 50/50 between duration and power.)

This gives Volt an effectively free source of energy for just fighting, which scales to the amount of stuff he’s doing. His abilities being relatively lackluster is mostly resolved by his improved energy economy and ability to boost his power strength to as-yet-unknown heights.

An interesting idea, unique, blends nicely with his kit and theme, with one problem.

Way too complicated for a passive.

Keep in mind that at this juncture, passives don't even have an official method of explanation within the game, Volt is a starter class, and you're introducing a pseudo-ability effect that can't be explained to a new player in a single sentence. I think the most complex passive we have right now is a replica Rank 0 mod effect.

 

To be honest at this point, I kind of want to hear what Scott has in mind for Mag and Volt's reworks, given his Undercover Dev work.
^{_{Shame there's no place for him to discuss them oh wait there is, shame he doesn't bother using it anymore.}}

Edited February 29, 2016 by Archwizard

[--Q--uaint]

2 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Irrelevant, since Electrical damage is one of the hardest hit by armor reduction, and flat damaging abilities are virtually worthless past mid-level anyway. At which point, effects like Shock and Overload are reduced to fancy applicators for electric status. If the main problems with Volt’s kit are survivability and damage scalability, then wasting space on redundancy is not a good way to start addressing the two.

Between the two, Overload’s the most gimmicky (with the electronics scaling), and has the least synergy within the kit. Given that chain lightning effects are something of a staple with electric casters throughout gaming, and Shock can be used while moving, I'd say Shock is more secure than Overload is in the position they compete for.

You should look at RealPandemonium’s post…

I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that Volt has a problem with survivability. Sure, he’s kinda squishy, but he has Electric Shield (and probably the ability to carry it, in the future.)

Damage scalability is the focus of my “charges” system… and Overload would synergize with that very well - Overload is the fastest way to proc a lot of enemies a good number of times, and Overload does a pretty good amount of damage. Between “charges” boosting his power strength (and Overload feeding Volt lots of charges) and enemy density buffing his damage with clumping, I think Overload would be one of the best-scaling AoE damage abilities in the game.

You can say that Overload doesn’t synergize with the rest of his kit, but you can’t say the rest of his kit does not synergize with Overload.
Shock CCs enemies, giving Volt time to cast Overload.
Speed helps Volt get to ideal places to cast quickly, and evade fire while casting Overload by retaining relatively large amounts of speed. (If you didn’t know, you can do moving casts by casting in midair/while sliding.)
Electric Shield protects Volt so he doesn’t git rekt while in the animation.

 

3 hours ago, Archwizard said:

An interesting idea, unique, blends nicely with his kit and theme, with one problem.

Way too complicated for a passive.

Keep in mind that at this juncture, passives don’t even have an official method of explanation within the game, Volt is a starter class, and you're introducing a pseudo-ability effect that can’t be explained to a new player in a single sentence. I think the most complex passive we have right now is a replica Rank 0 mod effect.

Hmm. While that’s true, it also will just increase Volt players' quality of life without them having any idea that it even exists. While this passive is… ehm… comparatively strong, the only people who'd care about maximizing its potential are liable to be looking at patch notes and/or the wiki anyway. I don’t think it really needs a special explanation other than that Volt is “a potent alternative to gunplay.”

I contend you could actually explain it in a single sentence: “Using abilities and meleeing gives you free energy regen and buffs your powers.”

I think the most complex passives we have right now are Mesa and Atlas’s.

Mesa gets buffs for not having a melee or primary equipped. There’s literally nothing in-game to indicate that you might want to try running without those weapons (other than for leveling one weapon in Draco or something). I feel like there’s a pretty good chance there’s someone out there who loves and plays Mesa but has no idea about her passive.

Atlas gets resistance to knockdowns and staggers, but only while on the ground. While it fits him nicely and is pretty self-explanatory AND I already knew the ins and outs of it, I was still surprised a few times because I momentarily forgot about the “while on the ground” part.

Both of these have nice passive benefits… with odd qualifiers that cause you to not get the benefits sometimes when you expect to. Atlas’s in particular is something you pretty implicitly depend on, and feel cheated when it doesn’t help you. By contrast, Volt’s proposed passive would be active for some part of almost every mission any Volt player played, but would also spend a lot of time inactive. It’s a nice treat you get for doing stuff you normally do, rather than a rug that can be pulled out from under you at inopportune times.

 

3 hours ago, Archwizard said:

To be honest at this point, I kind of want to hear what Scott has in mind for Mag and Volt’s reworks, given his Undercover Dev work.
^{_{Shame there’s no place for him to discuss them oh wait there is, shame he doesn’t bother using it anymore.}}

I do, too. Then again, he said he doesn’t have especially firm plans. Why have a thread like this if it’s not brought to relevant devs' attention? I dunno how fruitful further discussion would be, but I'm tempted to PM him and link this part of the discussion.

If you wanna move on to other topics, I'm game.

[tnccs215]

well,you people seem to be quite busy with frames that need substantially more attention than the one Im about to present, yet I suppose its better to talk about her eitherway.

I ask you to indulge me on my writing, since I truly enjoy to develop.

Your slight improvements to Equinox seem Good, however I'd like to add some: She was meant to be an highly adaptable, highly dynamic frame, blocked from overpoweredness (due to an incredibly adaptable kit) through simply being unable to use all her abilities simultaneously. I find this fair, however I also believe that, in fear of leaving her too powerful, they left her clunky to use.

I'm obviously talking about how her powers are deactivated upon use of metamorphosis. More often than not, the time that takes to change aspect and reactivate the powers is simply too much a bear to be useful, making most people stick to an aspect for most of the mission, only changing past a point(for example, many people star survival as day form, and stick to her until The CC Rest and Pacify's slow offer becomes more valuable than the impact proc and the damage of maim. Granted, this depends heavily from user to user). Adding insult to injury, metamorphosis buffs not only are timed, they also decay overtime. Ence, we are sent contradictory "coercive"messages: Keep changing form in order to maintain the bonus, and don't change form in order not to loose your powers.

in order to fight this dissonance, were can either choose to incentive role focusing, by removing the falloff on metamorphosis buffs (and even make them permanent) while keeping the power deactivation, or were could remove power deactivation, while keeping the falloff.

I think we can both agree, both due to her theme and your already proposed changes, that the latter hypothesis is better suited to her.

this is all, of course, to say that I believe that pacify and provoke should also be kept on upon metamorphosis, perhaps even having both effects during transitions.

this ties in with another problem arisen from the peaceful provocation augment (I'm going to ignore the fact pacify as it stands is only useful with this augment for now) : The fact that both buffs are only obtain through interaction intensifies the problem I already mentioned. If using metamorphosis was not encouraged, now its forbidden. To allow pacify and provoke not to deactivate upon metamorphosis would remove this problem. Perhaps its only me, but I believe a mod slot is an high enough price to pay for an Equinox augment.

onto the augment itself: It embodies what you've criticized augments for, granting actual use for an abilities that, due to an enormous amount of limiting factors, simply it's not good enough. I'm taking about pacify, of course. The falloff of damage reduction, couple with a constant energy drain (it is inherently unfair) that, in practical terms, increases with power range (which is not that high) render this a very lackluster ability by itself. I enjoy the improvements you propose. However, I don't know if the augment shouldn't, at least partially, be incorporated into the base ability. A base 30% slow effect, perhaps even unscallable. The augment, ence, could work similarly to how the provoke counterpart does--purely augmenting what it already does.

I also believe mend needs some tweaking beyond what you propose. The problems with this ability have been largely ignored since the advent of peaceful provocation. While Mend is still lackluster (both compared to maim, and to other healing abilities), pacify's status as the"main"ability of Night form rendered it's problems ignorable by the most part, mainly because there is no longer an expectancy for it to be "the star of the show", just like maim is. Personally, if I could fully alter her, I would dismiss peaceful provocation entirely, instead adding a similar slow effect to mend. That, however. Is not possible. So, I believe an initial bonus (just like Maim gives one) is at hand, either through enemy debuff (viral proc comes to mind), or ally buff (instant, small heal). The possibilities are enormous and I believe it's worth discussing.

I also believe Rage could have a slight alteration. This ability is rarely used except for augmenting Maim's proc damage, for the simple reason that increasing your enemies speed is usually a terrible idea. With that in mind, I suppose making the speed increase non scalable is convenient, or altering it in order to make it possible to, with negative power strength, become a slow effect, a la inverse molecular prime.

I hope you find this worth discussing.

Edited February 29, 2016 by tnccs215
typo

[taiiat]

tbh, what Overload currently - if we're going to keep it (still love the 'sentient Lightning Storm' thought though... cruising around, striking things with Lightning) - should be focusing around is indirect Damage.
i.e. Electric Status and Electronics.
meaning, the Damage AoE from Electric Status and the Lightning from Electronics.

there should be a third leg though, spacing out the Pulses is good, but Electric Status stuns is not unique, and can't be considered a major leg of the Ability.
i'm thinking Lightning... like how Hydroid makes cannon shells appear through the map, Overload makes Lightning strike through the map. (Ceres already strikes inside of buildings with it's Lightning storm :p)

with some not too extreme things, the Ability will instantly perform much better. as always, Electronics need to actually exist in Tilesets - this isn't hard to do, just place the relevant script module inside of Meshes that look 'electricey' and you're good - i'd do it myself if i could.
and then adjusting the Electronic objects so that they can hit 2-3 Enemies at once, and ofcourse are either endlessly re-usable (my preference) or recharge and do more interesting stuff the longer of time they have to recharge.
and then a base Damage Bonus for every Enemy inside of Overload's Range. use it when there's 10 Enemies in Range, get an extra say, 15% Damage each Enemy. Overload could possibly pull Enemies closer together, but another Player helping Volt do that is great synergy too...

but the important thing being that Enemies get bunched up during Overload, so that the base Damage can hit Enemies, apply Electric Status, and then half of that Damage applied in a decent AoE(5m) around every single Enemy, allowing for Volt to scale the Damage application quite high with some Player planning.
and this is why i've always been hesitant to give Volt a way to himself group Enemies up, because that gives a very high Damage capability, and something that powerful is probably better in the hands of Co-Op synergy.
because we've always been pretty starved for any sort of Co-Op in Warframe - there really isn't a whole lot, using Abilities at the same time kind've sort've, but almost nothing that directly benefits another thing, except for generic bonuses like extra Damage or extra Power Strength.
and i therefore can't approve of giving Warframes more features from other Warframes, and letting them be able to 'do it all alone' even more. we have too much of that as it is, Warframes that cover most or all of the bases of usefulness very well and being not too far off from a one person Squad of Tenno.
basically, if we go far enough and Players can just do everything to an excellent level on their own (keyword being excellent, Warframes or Mods/Equipment that let Players have a bit of something they normally couldn't have is more than acceptable), why is it even a Co-Op Multiplayer Game, could very well be a Singleplayer one.

- - - - - 

as for Equinox - not disabling Abilities when switching sides could work if the Abilities were adjusted in context of that.

and some adjustments in general, the on the nose one being that Maim absolutely must have it's base Damage divided by 2 or 3, and the Slash Status applied instead being like, 15-20% of Current Health.
this primarily keeps people from abusing Equinox and taking a casual stroll through low-mid Level Missions and having everything on the map instantly die - but also allows the offensive side of Equinox to deal some relevant Damage at all Levels, but not Killing things on it's own quickly, just dealing relevant Damage.

yes ofcourse Maim is a fairly big focus - it's one of the most outstanding issues with the Warframe, the other Abilities are a lot more 'tame' and 'in their place' already.

[tnccs215]

15 minutes ago, taiiat said:

 

 

as for Equinox - not disabling Abilities when switching sides could work if the Abilities were adjusted in context of that.

and some adjustments in general, the on the nose one being that Maim absolutely must have it's base Damage divided by 2 or 3, and the Slash Status applied instead being like, 15-20% of Current Health.
this primarily keeps people from abusing Equinox and taking a casual stroll through low-mid Level Missions and having everything on the map instantly die - but also allows the offensive side of Equinox to deal some relevant Damage at all Levels, but not Killing things on it's own quickly, just dealing relevant Damage.

yes ofcourse Maim is a fairly big focus - it's one of the most outstanding issues with the Warframe, the other Abilities are a lot more 'tame' and 'in their place' already.

tbh I dont find much need for ability adjustment in case of deactivation removal. Do feel free to say what you have in mind.

I do enjoy your Idea to deal with Maim. The times I felt a death deity by shamelessly murdering every single enemy in range up until 20 minutes in survival are long gone. Now I just feel an &amp;#&#33;. Your idea removes the exploitation, and grants scalability. I like it.

However, I dont think Maim is the main issue with Equinox. if you remove it, day Equinox is little more than a mild team buffer, and if it wasn't for Rest's spammability, unaungmented night form is simply wasted potential.

[taiiat]

1 hour ago, tnccs215 said:

tbh I dont find much need for ability adjustment in case of deactivation removal. Do feel free to say what you have in mind.

mostly just minor number adjustments in context of the extra things that can be present at the same time.
nothing really major though as a direct result of being able to have both sides in use.

like uh, would you be able to self affect with the Power Strength Bonus? i... don't think you can now, but i don't know for sure and if you can, would you still be able to? worth noting.
if you can keep things active and go use the other side, there is less reason to use Metamorphosis unless you're running low on Energy, not sure how i feel about that.
i'm sure there's other things of note.

on the upside, being able to have access to all Abilities and such, makes Mend seem less bland. though it should become more interesting anyways, as it's usage has only one purpose, and is completely passive in doing so - just, feels like there's a feature missing.
i guess Maim probably fits in that category too, but there's more visually going on than Mend, and that helps.

[tnccs215]

1 hour ago, taiiat said:

mostly just minor number adjustments in context of the extra things that can be present at the same time.
nothing really major though as a direct result of being able to have both sides in use.

like uh, would you be able to self affect with the Power Strength Bonus? i... don't think you can now, but i don't know for sure and if you can, would you still be able to? worth noting.
if you can keep things active and go use the other side, there is less reason to use Metamorphosis unless you're running low on Energy, not sure how i feel about that.
i'm sure there's other things of note.

on the upside, being able to have access to all Abilities and such, makes Mend seem less bland. though it should become more interesting anyways, as it's usage has only one purpose, and is completely passive in doing so - just, feels like there's a feature missing.
i guess Maim probably fits in that category too, but there's more visually going on than Mend, and that helps.

oh, I think you misunderstood me (or, better saying, I poorly explained myself): I dont mean for both "complementary" powers to be simultaneously active. That, indeed, would mean that metamorphosis would become useless.

what I mean is simply for Pacify&Provoke and Mend&Maim to change to the other facet upon metamorphosis. Pacify to provoke if changing from Night to Day, and vice-versa.

Otherwise, it really would make metamorphosis slightly redundant.

And, To be honest I don't enjoy the idea of having access to both sets of powers at the same time. If using metamorphosis was the only thing required in order to use them, it would not be a dynamic frame with two sets of powers, it would be a warframe with powers that required double casting.

 

ps:yes, of now, you can inflict yourself with Provoke's bonus.

[taiiat]

Just now, tnccs215 said:

what I mean is simply for Pacify&Provoke and Mend&Maim to change to the other facet upon metamorphosis

oh.
go nuts then.

[tnccs215]

30 minutes ago, taiiat said:

oh.
go nuts then.

*grabs twin grakatas, runs around madly*

anyway, I do have to say that I don't know how much Maim also fits on the "something is lacking"category. Fact is, while it is mainly focused on damage, it also possesses a certain CC aspect. Would Maim not possess the initial stun, its effectiveness would have been severely impaired. It is no coincidence many people asked for mend to also receive the stun proc.

[taiiat]

11 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

anyway, I do have to say that I don't know how much Maim also fits on the "something is lacking"category.

Maim is certainly useful. it puts on a show as it does things, which goes a long way to psychologically sell things to people.

[--Q--uaint]

Mayyyyybe… Mend could grant some level of damage reduction to Tenno in range? No… that’s Pacify. *sigh*

How about a low heal-over-time and a boost to knockdown recovery speed? That way it doesn’t entirely step on anyone’s toes.

[taiiat]

knockdown recovery is useful, but i have no comment on if it 'belongs' on the Ability.
could go off the deep end and have it give a little bit of everything - anything that's a buff/support to Players, a bit of everything. it' end up doing more than a dozen things, but maybe that's a route worth taking.

Enemies that are Killed inside of Range of Mend creating some fancy particle effects that seem like energy flowing into Equinox would make significant strides in the 'put on a show' thing. even though that doesn't change anything about the Ability, everyone would feel a bit better when using it because of said effect.
yes, cosmetic things are important too - if it feels cool to use, then it's perceived better.

[RealPandemonium]

What if Mend staggered instead of Maim?  Wouldn't that make more sense both thematically and gameplay-wise?  Maim is the aggressive DPS-augmentation/nuke move while Mend gives you a breather so you can build up a charge and heal.  Currently, Mend is the "too little too late" or "have this draining energy all mission until you maybe save someone from dying once" move while Maim is the "lololol faceroll everything passively, offense and defense in one" move.  Moving the stagger from one to the other would balance both.  

Edited March 1, 2016 by RealPandemonium

[taiiat]

you might be able to get away with it sometimes... as Pacify could be used to CC Enemies when using Maim or something... but unfortunately, with the game we have, CC is a gilded emperor.
if Mend and Maim had CC, but two different kinds of CC, perhaps? Maim resulting with a fairly minor CC (which it's not too far off of currently) while the non-aggressive side having something more effective.

perhaps in a future Warframe we won't need constant CC, but that isn't the game we have now.

[tnccs215]

I've said it before:

1 hour ago, taiiat said:

 

Enemies that are Killed inside of Range of Mend creating some fancy particle effects that seem like energy flowing into Equinox would make significant strides in the 'put on a show' thing. even though that doesn't change anything about the Ability, everyone would feel a bit better when using it because of said effect.
yes, cosmetic things are important too - if it feels cool to use, then it's perceived better.

Dark Souls much. I like it.

~~

1 hour ago, RealPandemonium said:

What if Mend staggered instead of Maim?  Wouldn't that make more sense both thematically and gameplay-wise?  Maim is the aggressive DPS-augmentation/nuke move while Mend gives you a breather so you can build up a charge and heal.  Currently, Mend is the "too little too late" or "have this draining energy all mission until you maybe save someone from dying once" move while Maim is the "lololol faceroll everything passively, offense and defense in one" move.  Moving the stagger from one to the other would balance both.  

Yes. I think DE didnt really know what to do with Mend. Should they make it a proactive ability-- being beneficial to keep up and running until required-- Or should they make it a reactive ability-- to be used when and just on dire need-- It looks like they ended up giving it the worse of both worlds: a quick, momentarily benefit (the heal) that is reactive, but requires all the work a proactive ability should have (and none of the benefits).

In the end, I think a stagger proc would be nice, or an accuracy debuff, since night is, well, dark... It would synergize quite well with pacify (That is, they are relatively redundant, but support each-other).

I used to be quite critical regarding putting overshields in case of over healing-- I always felt that was a bit "meh", and a more unique thing, like armor increase, or a temporary "old iron skin" like overhealth (capped at a certain value, of course), would compensate for the risk taken. Now, however, I think overshields are "good enough". I've also seen someone propose using the "healthpool" of Mend like Quickthinking: when your health (or a teammate's) reach fatal levels, the pool starts taking the damage for you/them. It could be an interesting feture, though I dont know if it wouldnt be a bit overpowered.

[taiiat]

1 minute ago, tnccs215 said:

Dark Souls much. I like it.

ye, Dork Souls does things like that indeed.

1 minute ago, tnccs215 said:

Should they make it a proactive ability or should they make it a reactive ability

Overshields

I've also seen someone propose using the "healthpool" of Mend like Quickthinking: when your health (or a teammate's) reach fatal levels, the pool starts taking the damage for you/them. It could be an interesting feture, though I dont know if it wouldnt be a bit overpowered.

with the style of Equinox, should be both. useful for both reactive and proactive.

perhaps not just Overshields specifically - but OverShields and OverHealth... that drain back to normal over time? similar style to Metamorphosis then. even if Metamorphosis needs to scale from 100% to like, 25% or so on it's time scale, as the last like, third of the duration of those bonuses are so small that they do nothing.

it could be useful & interesting indeed, but definitely tricky to make balanced, due to how Enemy EHP scales.

[tnccs215]

11 hours ago, taiiat said:

ye, Dork Souls does things like that indeed.

with the style of Equinox, should be both. useful for both reactive and proactive.

perhaps not just Overshields specifically - but OverShields and OverHealth... that drain back to normal over time? similar style to Metamorphosis then. even if Metamorphosis needs to scale from 100% to like, 25% or so on it's time scale, as the last like, third of the duration of those bonuses are so small that they do nothing.

it could be useful & interesting indeed, but definitely tricky to make balanced, due to how Enemy EHP scales.

mh... It would be interesting indeed. One of the reasons I believe Mend is so lacking is because it doesn't provide any protection after the heal.

I mean, Healing is most needed on extreme situations, and in those situations some sort of extra defense is required to prevent death. when under heavy fire, getting nothing but a heal (and a break that locks you in place) will more often than not only allow you to survive another half of second--which means that you'll either escape the situation in need of another heal, out won't escape it at all.

I suppose this is why blessing offers damage resistance post healing, and why renewal is accompanied by a gradual heal. Granted, there are some abilities that do not offer this (Nezha's warding halo, for example), yet they are usually, and to some extend, either gradual or spammable-- something Mend is not.

of course. It is really hard to find such a gimmick without making it either worthless, or abusably overpowered (*coff coff* blessing. The idea you propose, however, seems good, if done properly. If it is capped, and if the fall off time is unaffected by duration mods, it would reinforce its use as a "get the hell oflut of there" gimmick, instead if one that, abused, allows to tank shots from a level 200 bombard.

oh, and if I'm correct, Mend&Maim scales from enemies' health, not EHP. Or, to be more precise, I know it doesn't take armor into account (might take shields).

Edited March 1, 2016 by tnccs215

[taiiat]

4 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

oh, and if I'm correct, Mend&Maim scales from enemies' health, not EHP. Or, to be more precise, I know it doesn't take armor into account (might take shields).

both Health and Shields.
it doesn't account for Armor, but as it stands, Killing like, two or three Lv30 Enemies would give you more Health than a Frost spamming Snowglobes.

that's the tricky part. what percent of Enemy EHP is actually balanced....

[Demlier]

Wow really nice, i need to say you have awesome ideas for change's for specific frames , great work i would really to see those changes in game :)

[--Q--uaint]

23 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

I've also seen someone propose using the "healthpool" of Mend like Quickthinking: when your health (or a teammate's) reach fatal levels, the pool starts taking the damage for you/them. It could be an interesting feture, though I dont know if it wouldnt be a bit overpowered.

I like this idea; if it would be too overpowered, maybe just make Mend auto-trigger the heal burst under the same circumstances?