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

[--Q--uaint]

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

5) I get your point, but it does something I hate: Negative duration (since the barriers lifetime has a limit) would be a beneficial stat, due to being able to heal better. Negative stats being good is a no-no to me. It defeats the purpose of Corrupted mods, having a stronger benefit than a regular mod, but along with a detriment. If the negative part is pointless, or even beneficial, well, just… no. In this case, it would a niche benefit, sure, but it’s still a potential benefit, which could obsolete WoL = Me no likey.

8) Having that on holdcast would be very hard to use.

10) Well, I don’t like that though. Ez-mode infinite loops is a big part of the reason why I think Trinity needs a revamp. (The other two reasons being WoL’s uselessness, and Blessing’s absurd power)

12) Why? Because you have to actually MOVE? ;)

5) Powers being maximized for different things by having negative vs positive stats has been around since the Corrupted mods came out, and at least Miasma’s been like that since vanilla, I think.
If you minimize duration, you're obsoleting WoL anyway. That being said, I'm fine with healing at the end or at the beginning. I still think healing at the end might be better since it discourages spam.

8) …Trudat. Fair enough.

10) The problem with having a 'frame that doesn’t actually do anything to the enemies is that she needs some way to actually win. Currently, she does that by outlasting them. Given that the enemies are endless and scale indefinitely, that’s a tall order. This rework still does that, to an extent, since it still doesn’t “fix” the “problem.”

12) No, because it’s something that drops from enemies. Why would I bring a 'frame for a benefit that I can more easily get by bashing heads in? Health orbs get a pass, to an extent, because most enemies don’t drop them.
If enemies did not drop energy orbs, EV dropping orbs would be fine IMO.

43 minutes ago, taiiat said:

again, you people are like, single track minded at just trying to spite a certain Player as much as possible with your intended Game Design. that is how games fail, just as the never ending ladder causes games to fail.
either stop, or admit that the intention is just as bad for the game as the problem you're trying to fix is.

i don’t really care if those adjustments don’t immediately halt people from being abusive on a certain box in a certain popular Mission. Game Design that focuses around specific situations is a guaranteed recipie for failure. this is not how you fix the problem you're trying to address.
in the other 100% of the game, Killing an Enemy not returning Energy is unacceptable. Energy Vampire works that way for a damn good reason - and it’s because people will shoot the big flashy glowing Enemy first. it returning the result on death allows Energy Vampire to actually be used. this absolutely cannot be returned to it’s original state or Energy Vampire will be useless in 99% of gameplay, AGAIN.

 

oh, you would. you get more Energy from more Duration AND Link lasts longer AND your free invulnerability lasts longer? they'll grab Primed Continuity, Constitution, a mid ranked Narrow Minded. and then go with Intensify, Power Drift, Stretch, mid/full Overextended, and Cunning Drift. probably Blind Rage too and take advantage of the Energy Pool to not bother with Efficiency.
for infinite Energy gain over a huge area, with no downsides, just all direct upgrades to all Abilities.
unacceptable. everything being free upgrades is not okay.

yes, they should be interersting both +/-. which means having a reason to go both ways.
in actual Gameplay, more Duration is a no brainer because Link is incredibly important for Trinity. Blessing lasting longer as well. you will not be Script Killing Enemies at one every other second, but you can still apply a lot of Damage to the tough Enemies that Players find very difficult to Kill. or, two different flavors of single Target CC that last a long time.
there is a reason for longer Duration, and it’s longer CC. if you want more to consider, consider adding new features, not forcing Players to only use the Mods you want to use and punish everyone else that doesn’t.

 

in what i reminded when the discussion started up about this again - i said it would be metered. which in what i have in mind, means that Energy Vampire would probably give a total of 25–50 Energy, period. something that makes it always Energy positive for Trinity, but probably can’t be modified because… otherwise it can’t really be balanced. unfortunately.
but that also goes along with Trinity having a Warframe specific Resource that Energy Vampire generates, acting like a second Energy Bar to allow Trinity to juggle her Abilities in the interesting way that Trinity does now, without needing to generate infinite Energy to do so. (even if i enjoy generating bottomless Energy so that Quick Thinking can always be a safety net for if i get hit when Link can’t find any Enemies and/or nobody needs Healing and Blessing isn’t running)

That’s fair. But the original intent with this discussion was to find a way to rework EV such that it didn’t enable that kind of playstyle. Or at least, I think it was.
I realize that the intent to spite a particular “playstyle” is bad, but that same “playstyle” is pretty bad for the game itself. Given that, without EV, the Draco meta would basically not exist? I think it’s reasonable to attempt to make sure EV stops enabling it quite so ridiculously well.

I wasn’t saying EV should be reverted to loss of energy on enemy death. That would be quite silly, as you noted. I was saying that leaving the ability to kill the target instantly for instant energy will continue to enable the Draco meta. The version of EV Azamagon, tnccs, and I have been talking about does address both Draco and utility in general gameplay IMO.

Making builds that have strong, direct upgrades to all powers is definitely a thing, and I don’t know why you'd be opposed to it. Perhaps it’s too strong when applied to Trinity, but the mods aren’t going away so Trinity should probably change. In fact, my Abating Link Trin I've linked you before is a pretty good example of maximizing all powers. High range, high duration, high strength… and I have strong EV and 600 energy, so I don’t care about efficiency. If I really wanted to, I could probably drop Abating Link and get my efficiency positive as well.

Single-target CC is really not worth much of anything unless it’s a finisher-stun, and not really even then. Sorry, that’s not a good argument for why I want high duration on EV. A somewhat-decent argument is that doing a full Bless build can work on energy-nerf-modifier missions if you EV something before you Bless… but that’s kinda pushing it.
Well of Life is really only to synergize with EV or occasionally for CC. The CC aspect is nice, I suppose, but you don’t really want a huge duration on it. If you're using it for CC, generally you want to give yourself a little breathing room to get ready to fight them with. If you're using it for CC, killing the mob with 10x health is probably not an option. You still get a good number of seconds with minimized duration, and that’s basically optimal.

I am, in fact, considering adding more features. Have you been reading the other comments? If you mean adding features on top of her current kit… Making her even more OP is really not my intention in this discussion lol

Hmm. I suppose that’s fair, but it still leaves room for negative duration/early killing to get energy faster.

Adding another resource for Trinity is an… interesting idea? I don’t think it’s a good idea, though, since it directly affects when you can and should use your abilities and likely won’t be explained by anything in-game. Remember when they changed EV and its description stayed the same for… what, 2 full Updates?

30 minutes ago, Awesomeisfree said:

Channeled vs Duration-cast aren’t particularly different to me from a player experience. And I'm not sure what point you are trying to make by mentioning Chroma. Chroma has his problems too.

Well because Shock, as mentioned in my post, scales over time and chains to multiple targets. Each bullet fired would cause a Shock that would continue to do damage while shooting more bullets (which potentially would also cast Shock). It’s kind of like Mirage’s Hall of Mirrors. The shield would be channeling five or so Shocks at a time.

Infamous is an action rpg thingy where you play as a character with electrical powers. He has an energy bar that he charges by sucking electricity out of street lamps, air conditioners, and fallen enemies, and such. Not that I think Volt and the Infamous character should be particularly similar; it’s just where the metaphor came from.

Channeled is very different from duration-cast in my experience, but I suppose that’s opinion? *shrug*
Chroma has two different self-buffs that he has to maintain to be actually useful, unless he just builds for Effigy.

Having an attack that scales over time be the direct attack buff through the Shield is silly. If I brought an Opticor, my Shield will spend half the time doing nothing but protecting me.
By contrast, buffing the Opticor’s damage by a % with a guaranteed electric proc? Sounds like a recipe for destruction :3

Ok… but what, exactly, would Volt’s 3rd power do mechanically in your scheme? Would it give him energy? Boost his power stats?

[Archwizard]

Was able to fix the broken spoiler tags in the OP.

Fun thing: New spoiler boxes are unaffected by whatever forum bug that was (so I had to rebuild the entire structure, but at least I only needed to copy-paste the contents). Also, you can only remove a spoiler box if you select text above it, and keep selecting down below the text box; it won't work if you go from bottom up, and if you don't select text above it (below it doesn't matter) then you're basically selecting the page itself.
It took me about 6 tries just today, since that last bit led to me leaving the page/losing progress.

Very idiosyncratic system and I'm really starting to hate it.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Archwizard

[taiiat]

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

Also, you can only remove a spoiler box if you select text above it, and keep selecting down below the text box; it won't work if you go from bottom up, and if you don't select text above it (below it doesn't matter) then you're basically selecting the page itself.

Very idiosyncratic system and I'm really starting to hate it.

- you can delete Spoilers, Quotes, and anything else if you select it.
just like anything else of the sort, use the move button to select the object, then delete it with either Backspace or Delete.

	gfycat.com/UnsungFatalIguanodon

- yes, the Forums are just as dumb as they were before, even more so in some ways. some format processing blowups don't happen anymore, but we also lost like 90% of our capabilities in the process.
which i guess is fine if you only use a Forum to post $&*^butt, but some people actually want to write real words and know how to format them correctly (something.... the people in charge of the Forums don't seem to understand?).

Edited March 29, 2016 by taiiat

[Archwizard]

Given our recent discussions on Energy Vampire and energy availability in general, I felt it was important to mention it in a devstream question post.

Of course, they posted it an hour before I woke up, so my reserved spot ended up on page 5. Fingers crossed, I guess.

[VampirePirate]

On 2/15/2016 at 1:55 PM, taiiat said:

this pinhole way of thinking drags the game down.

 

Warframes have 4 Abilities. as long as the first one or two are useful without Mods, it literally doesn't matter what Ability is on what button.

'ult' is a term that should not belong in Warframe. this implies that as the number button is higher, an Ability MUST be universally superior to the ones before it.

 

that is mindbogglingly destructive for the game. Warframes should have 4 Abilities that are distinctly useful, have some synergistic relations with each other, but don't just supercede each other in order to fit some League of Legends Character Model when, last i checked, this isn't a MOBA.

 

similarly, Energy Costs should not be automatically 25/50/75/100. Energy Costs should be logical in context of the Ability that's in that slot.

 

 

 

there is no good reason why Warframes could, should, or Dr.seussaplould follow some strict model that's made for a completely different type of game.

it artificially limits the capabilities of every Warframe and also contorts their Abilities into every button being more mapwipe AoE Blast than the last one in order to actually fill that complete supersession Character Model.

 

Edit:

this isn't really directed towards you specifically, but to everyone - for the love of everything, if you actually care about Warframe, don't treat Warframe Abilities like a MOBA. treat them like Warframe.

Touche

This term "Dr.seussaplould" put an itch on my brain though

 

[ImNotJellyAtAll]

  Made an Oberon rework thread. Feedback would be nice.

 

[taiiat]

8 hours ago, VampirePirate said:

Touche

i think it's important. it doesn't really matter if something shares any amount of similarity with a different genre of game - making Warframe conform to another genre of game or another game means we aren't making Warframe. and if we're not making Warframe, what's the point.

[Archwizard]

Something I've been thinking about for a while now, is changing Equinox's Mend for the sake of Overhealing. The idea I've had in mind was that, instead of adding an equivalent to Maim's bleed, that Mend would have a bonus effect once activated: you create a field within range of yourself which contains all of the health you stored, and any damage taken by Tenno within this field is instantly healed away, draining from the field itself. Instead of being empowered by Power Strength like Maim, the field would be affected by Power Duration, only lasting for a short while (less than 10 seconds base). It keeps with the name and theme, while bumping the effect up and not having to pull on odd strings to overload the effect (such as adding Overshields). I think the only issue I have with it is it doesn't play on her passives like the health orb generation in the current writeup (although with the changes we've made to make energy less available and health orbs moreso, that's not really unique anyway).

And that's when it hit me. An effect you need to charge ahead of time, for a brief glimmer of heavy effectiveness, encouraging saving it to be used situationally - it's exactly the intended design of Blessing, rather than this catch-all effect that blows all other healing skills out of the water.

Something that was repeatedly suggested during the Reddit thread I set up, was to transfer all of Trinity's healing effectiveness to Well of Life, and change Blessing so that its effect could only be used reactively - rather than something you can build to optimize for invincibility just by throwing on Quick Thinking. For instance, reducing it to just mitigation (with the question then being of how it would rank up), so you're encouraged to actually heal with Well.

On 3/28/2016 at 5:25 PM, blaes said:

2) Energy vampire :

or b) it is cast on a target, consuming its life to reduce energy consumption of players in range, allowing for better than 75% efficiency.

efficiency boost would be something like 30%/40%/50%/60% not affected by power strength, multiplicative with your warframe efficiency. that means that at best (with max warframe efficiency and max rank energy vampire), you could reach 90% final efficiency (energy consumption = (100% -75%)*(100%-60%) = 25%*40% = 10%). with only 35% efficiency (max fleeting plus max streamline plus max blinnd rage for instance), you could reach 74% final efficiency.

Gonna be honest, I'm really not a fan of having it bump Efficiency for two reasons.

A) Thematically, it's not really a "vampire" effect, and only has obligatory connection to the target itself.

B) Mechanically, it's an effect that only contributes to abilities. Meanwhile, actual energy contributes to Channeling and Quick Thinking. You're not just gimping the meta of the week, you're putting deep cuts in other builds.

It should still restore energy - just in a way that's harder to abuse.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Archwizard

[tnccs215]

2 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Something I've been thinking about for a while now, is changing Equinox's Mend for the sake of Overhealing. The idea I've had in mind was that, instead of adding an equivalent to Maim's bleed, that Mend would have a bonus effect once activated: you create a field within range of yourself which contains all of the health you stored, and any damage taken by Tenno within this field is instantly healed away, draining from the field itself. Instead of being empowered by Power Strength like Maim, the field would be affected by Power Duration, only lasting for a short while (less than 10 seconds base). It keeps with the name and theme, while bumping the effect up and not having to pull on odd strings to overload the effect (such as adding Overshields). I think the only issue I have with it is it doesn't play on her passives like the health orb generation in the current writeup (although with the changes we've made to make energy less available and health orbs moreso, that's not really unique anyway).

 

 

Mh... There is a slight problem with that.

what if there are no enemies around? That idea would demand being activated only when you are surrounded, and quite heavily-- otherwise, it would be a waste-- for the simple reason that the ability needs to be charged in the First place. Making anything basing itself off of this charge, on ability deactivation, and timed... Mh. I think it will just be frustrating.

At least, make the counter only start once you have a minimum value stored, or after the first kill.

[Archwizard]

33 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

At least, make the counter only start once you have a minimum value stored, or after the first kill.

Apologies, poor phrasing on my part, I meant "once the healing pulse is activated" - the field would be created instead of the healing pulse (since it contains the pulse within the effect), rather than having a 10 second timer upon starting the charge. You'd have to have some charge in the effect to even have that pulse in the first place.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Archwizard

[tnccs215]

10 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Apologies, poor phrasing on my part, I meant "once the healing pulse is activated" - the field would be created instead of the healing pulse (since it contains the pulse within the effect), rather than having a 10 second timer upon starting the charge. You'd have to have some charge in the effect to even have that pulse in the first place.

oh, I see. Yes, that is substantially more attractive... However, I see a problem: This might be me sticking too much to her current paradigm, but she is, as it stands, quite hard to mod her into a balanced effectiveness, where all her powers can can be used with satisfying results and fair (or at least tolerable) costs. She demands an augment and quite a lot of strength to make Pacify&Provoke worthwhile, a lot of range, and a lot of efficiency. In the end, the only stat you can slack off a bit while maintaining all her abilities usable is duration. I think DE knew this, because Rest&Rage (specially Rest) possesses a more than generous base duration, to the point that what you'd consider "base material" is around 65% duration. Your idea would hit this build a bit hard, but it would also benefit what I consider is the most exploitative build used: Max Range and Duration, which uses nothing but Rest (as a spammable AoE CC) and Maim (as the quasi-overpowered nuke that "saves her" from being mastery fodder). So, maybe make its duration not to be affected by mods?

Also, an idea: that proposition opens doors to another thing: Mend suffers by being a high demanding ranged heal. Maybe that change would allow the heal to affect all allies (independent of range), but benefiting greatly those who stood in range (with the effect you proposed)? Or that would be asking too much?

[Edit]: I've been thinking about your idea, and the more I think, the more problems you find.:

Yes, it attempts to resolve the waste of overheal, but it doesn't cover the absence of an initial benefit.

Yes, it would offer a great benefit the more you work for it, but it would be for less than 10 seconds. And this is a channeled ability: you would be wasting precious energy so that you could have a small extra at the end. I honestly think I would still not use the ability, because it would still be a reactive ability that requires a proactive effort. It would still be the player wasting energy for the possible advent of almost dying. 

Your proposal is, in a certain way, a substancially more expensive Blessing that requires much more work, doesn't apply to all the team, and lasts for substantially less time. As such, many will theorize modding for it, and that mean Narrow Minded. However, Narrow Minded will render most of her ability borderline useless, because Equinox depends (A LOT) on Range. Hell, even to use charge this ability you will have to reduce yourself to melee, because its range will be too small for enemies that are not at arms length to charge it. And that would only be feasable at higher levels if pacify offered a damage reduction centered on the player, not on enemies. Pacify would not be able to allow the tanking she needs to charge Mend. So, most people (me included) would still not use this, because building it for it would do a lot more harm than good.

Your idea doesn't change the way it is used now (an expensive wait for an hypothetical need for a heal), it just adds a little extra in the end.  

I like your idea, I trully do. but I don't think it is enough by itself. we need something to compensate for the constant loss of energy, something imediate. Maim possesses the impact proc and the immediate Bleed. The channeling isn't solely a wait for it to charge, it comes with benefits. But simply this... is not enough.

Edited March 31, 2016 by tnccs215
post-thought

[--Q--uaint]

22 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Something that was repeatedly suggested during the Reddit thread I set up, was to transfer all of Trinity’s healing effectiveness to Well of Life, and change Blessing so that its effect could only be used reactively - rather than something you can build to optimize for invincibility just by throwing on Quick Thinking. For instance, reducing it to just mitigation (with the question then being of how it would rank up), so you're encouraged to actually heal with Well.

Would it be fair to give it the mitigation and an Iron Skin-like effect (which is benefited by any DR the skill provides)? That would allow it to rank up nicely.
The problem I'm seeing with this is that Trinity or some other 'frame would reduce themselves to 2 health with QT… and then leave it there. Shields would be sufficient to protect you with 99% DR up (especially if overshield spam from EV is a thing), and the Bless wouldn’t have to hurt themselves in between casts anymore. That just makes it even more abusable.
EDIT: The more I think about it, the more I think basing DR off of missing health is just too abusable. Maybe make it a base of 10/20/30/40% with an added (health missing)/(max health*2).

22 hours ago, Archwizard said:

B) Mechanically, it’s an effect that only contributes to abilities. Meanwhile, actual energy contributes to Channeling and Quick Thinking. You're not just gimping the meta of the week, you're putting deep cuts in other builds.

If it’s needed, I'm sure DE could figure out a way to make it buff channeling, QT, and even charging the Tritium battery in raids. TBH, I think channeling shouldn’t use energy at all (with the possible exception of Life Strike), QT doesn’t need the help, and the whole LoR battery-charging mechanic is just problematic as a whole.

22 hours ago, Archwizard said:

A) Thematically, it’s not really a “vampire” effect, and only has obligatory connection to the target itself.

It should still restore energy - just in a way that’s harder to abuse.

My idea was that it would be at least energy-neutral for Trinity herself. It might be moddable to be energy-positive, or maybe you always get out what you put in.

The important thing is that Trinity’s energy is the vampire. Instead of being spent, it sustains itself and Trinity’s allies for the duration.

18 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

I like your idea, I trully do. but I don’t think it is enough by itself. we need something to compensate for the constant loss of energy, something imediate. Maim possesses the impact proc and the immediate Bleed. The channeling isn’t solely a wait for it to charge, it comes with benefits. But simply this… is not enough.

So perhaps make Mend have a range-based HoT, with a heal pulse on deactivation. After deactivation, there would be a range-based “overhealth” that protects allies for a while? I think it'd be fair to make it not modifiable by duration, since the build that maximizes for that would benefit too much and would penalize the builds that don’t too much?

Edited April 1, 2016 by ChronoEclipse

[Archwizard]

Just for absolute clarity what I mean by the Mend thing, so we have an absolute definition of it going forward:

You toggle Mend on as now. The effect generates a flat amount of damage from a percentage of the max health of enemies slain within the aura, as now. You toggle the effect off, and instead of a healing aura, a dome of energy forms within the area that would be healed, containing all of the health generated while the effect is toggled on. Allies standing within this aura are automatically and immediately healed of any damage taken before entry, or of incoming damage received while they remain within the field - even fatal damage (not to say that if it's deactivated by dying, you'll be rezzed; you'd still need to be able to receive the healing) - but it drains from the field's health in a similar manner to Snow Globe. Once the field runs out of health, or the duration ends, the field immediately disappears.

Essentially, this means that the entire party gains a pool of bonus max HP for a brief period, but it's shared between everybody using it.

19 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

In the end, the only stat you can slack off a bit while maintaining all her abilities usable is duration. I think DE knew this, because Rest&Rage (specially Rest) possesses a more than generous base duration, to the point that what you'd consider "base material" is around 65% duration. Your idea would hit this build a bit hard

I fail to see how this would be any worse than its current state - even if you obliterate your Duration, at worst you get... exactly the same results as now?

19 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

but it would also benefit what I consider is the most exploitative build used: Max Range and Duration, which uses nothing but Rest (as a spammable AoE CC) and Maim (as the quasi-overpowered nuke that "saves her" from being mastery fodder). So, maybe make its duration not to be affected by mods?

Ultimately, the ability itself would already be limited by the amount of health you had already stored by killing enemies. Yes, you could get an incredibly high Range and Duration - but you're still going to have to build up the effect before you can use it again. Even if you had enough Duration to keep the field lasting for minutes at a time, it won't matter if your casts only give you enough health to stand still for a few seconds.

19 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

Yes, it attempts to resolve the waste of overheal, but it doesn't cover the absence of an initial benefit.

Yes, but counterpoint, why does it need an initial benefit?

Because Maim has one? In a toolkit that is deprived of any other form of CC or self-preservation? Night Form doesn't suffer in the utility department, just the cost-effectiveness of that utility (lookin' at you, Pacify - don't worry, I'll get to you).

If Mend had an "anti-bleed" on allies while toggled on, you wouldn't have any reason to ever toggle it off to activate the primary effect - like I said, healing is a rarity in any form. Okay, you can argue it would be useful in cases of burst-healing, but incoming damage really snaps from "tolerable, could stay out of fire for a couple seconds and regen would cover it" to "I'm up - oh, no, I'm on the floor again" very quickly if you're on a frame that doesn't already have some innate form of mitigation, or immunity periods.

The idea here is that while Maim has more "upfront" benefits while Mend is more bottom-heavy - as a point. The inversion is thematically fitting, given the frame (especially when you consider that Yin represents passivity and stagnation).

20 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

Your proposal is, in a certain way, a substancially more expensive Blessing that requires much more work, doesn't apply to all the team, and lasts for substantially less time.

And we're already discussing making Blessing less of a catch-all, so Mend has a reasonable point to actually catch up to.

20 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

Your idea doesn't change the way it is used now (an expensive wait for an hypothetical need for a heal), it just adds a little extra in the end. 

What I'd like to say is "that's the point", but I can't actually agree with you on this one. There is a radical difference between "I just got healed by 100 HP" and "I just gained 10000+ temporary HP for 6.5 seconds, which is a vital 6.5 seconds longer than I would be living without anyway", and there are more uses for that than just a snap heal you need to build up to.

[taiiat]

20 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

Mend: Healing bubble/dome

much more useful than it is now, go for it.

[tnccs215]

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

a dome of energy forms within the area that would be healed

 

 

 

Dont dislike the idea, would make it much, much easier for allies to detect the area to get to. We have to be careful for it not to look like a Nullifier bubble, or we'll get the opposite result we want, and allies running away from it. Though, I still think an ability icon should be put ahead of in range allies name, so that the Equinox can choose more efficiently when to deactivate the ability.

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

 

 

I fail to see how this would be any worse than its current state - even if you obliterate your Duration, at worst you get... exactly the same results as now?

 

 

I'm not saying it would be worse. In practical terms, you are completely right. But thats the point: What we get now is really, really not enough.

I am also saying that it wouldn't be good enough. Just because it is better, doesn't mean it is good.

Additionally, it will simply be more frustrating. The current ability is borderline useless and it is obvious. But with your alteration, a player will feel even more gimped than already is, specially since duration also affects Mend efficiency.

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

 

 

Ultimately, the ability itself would already be limited by the amount of health you had already stored by killing enemies. Yes, you could get an incredibly high Range and Duration - but you're still going to have to build up the effect before you can use it again. Even if you had enough Duration to keep the field lasting for minutes at a time, it won't matter if your casts only give you enough health to stand still for a few seconds.

 

 

Than you are agreeing with me. The ability would not be limited solely by the fact you need to build up, but also by its efficiency and because it is timed.

I know I am using Maim too much as an example, but I think it still applies here: Maim works because its effects are permanent, something yours aren't (and, frankly, I don't think they should be yes, but the limit you impose is too gimping). So you will have diminished returns and probably wasted, unspent HP regardless.

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

 

 

Yes, but counterpoint, why does it need an initial benefit?

Because Maim has one? In a toolkit that is deprived of any other form of CC or self-preservation? Night Form doesn't suffer in the utility department, just the cost-effectiveness of that utility (lookin' at you, Pacify - don't worry, I'll get to you).

 

 

Not exactly because Maim has one, but why Maim has one.

I am not referring to Day Form's complete absence of defensive mechanisms, I am referring to the simple fact that this is a toggled ability. That means that it is inherently inciting you to deactivate it-- a problem that becomes much, much more intense on an energy hungry frame such as Equinox.

You are aiming to make a proactive ability that rewards investment, and I am perfectly ok with that. However, this is an investive ability used to counteract very specific situations- and while you are waiting for the situation to appear, your energy is being drained by the second. It doesn't allow waiting for the right moment. Abilities like this cant harm you by the minute, they must allow you to choose the moment to deactivate it.

And this is specially true for Equinox. She is a very, very energy depleting frame. Hell, with how pacify is, I find Energy Overflow to be essential to maintain tolerable amounts of energy on my reserves. So Mend is specially hurtful: It not only drains energy, it also blocks the precious energy regeneration (be it from EO, or from ES) that Equinox demands. And while I am interested to know about your pacify ideas, I don't think that they will resolve this.

However, criticism must be constructive. I must have given the idea that I dont lie your proposal. I do like it, but I see too many flaws. However, I do have a solution for the problem I mentioned: We already have some abilities that reward investment, one of them being ballistic battery. You spend energy to activate the pool, but nothing more. You charge it, and after that it is up to you when the moment is right.

Of course, it is also a capped ability, so reducing Mends energy cost to its activation wile keeping an infinite pool would be overpowered-- and capping the pool would remove its attractiveness. So, we can look to other ability that rewards investment in a compelling way: Nyx's ultimate. Yes, it is channeled and locks you into place, however it also grants you complete invulnerability and absorbs every damage received- this last portion at the cost of extra energy. I can sfely assure that the drain over time is only the cost of the natural increase in damage and of the invicibility, with the absorbed damage being compensated with the additional cost per hit value.

So, why not making it work similarly? You have an activation cost and, after that, energy is only drain when killing enemies to increase the reserve, with each 100 hp costing something like... 1 energy? 2? It matters not, because my point is clear: You now can have perfect control over how much and when you will heal, without having the ghost of a drain over time hovering above your head.

If you add that, I'll get aboard your train.

only problem I see with this is how different it becomes from Maim and, might be me, but I think each ability should mirror each other.

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

 

 

What I'd like to say is "that's the point", but I can't actually agree with you on this one. There is a radical difference between "I just got healed by 100 HP" and "I just gained 10000+ temporary HP for 6.5 seconds, which is a vital 6.5 seconds longer than I would be living without anyway", and there are more uses for that than just a snap heal you need to build up to.

Perhaps. But between Pacify drain, and Rests cost, I still find a finisher with life strike a better alternative. Still, Ive already given an idea. Wanna know your opinion.

Oh, and I await the Pacify discussion very, very eagerly.

Edited April 1, 2016 by tnccs215

[--Q--uaint]

38 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

So Mend is specially hurtful: It not only drains energy, it also blocks the precious energy regeneration (be it from EO, or from ES) that Equinox demands.

I'd like comments on how problematic it would be to let us regenerate energy while in channeled abilities.

TBH, most of the channeled abilities are “lackluster” enough in their impact on the field that it'd be fine to allow people to leave them on for extended periods. That’s why they're channeled. It baffles me that channeled abilities are considered in any way comparable to standard-cast abilities.

I can build Ivara for 30+ seconds of Cloak Arrow with +30% efficiency. This means I can shoot one onto my Carrier and be invisible with no worries for 25 seconds. Given the energy supply mechanics we have, I can be invisible indefinitely with no breaks. Prowl requires me to be lucky with energy drops to keep me safe.

[tnccs215]

10 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

I'd like comments on how problematic it would be to let us regenerate energy while in channeled abilities.

TBH, most of the channeled abilities are “lackluster” enough in their impact on the field that it'd be fine to allow people to leave them on for extended periods. That’s why they're channeled. It baffles me that channeled abilities are considered in any way comparable to standard-cast abilities.

I can build Ivara for 30+ seconds of Cloak Arrow with +30% efficiency. This means I can shoot one onto my Carrier and be invisible with no worries for 25 seconds. Given the energy supply mechanics we have, I can be invisible indefinitely with no breaks. Prowl requires me to be lucky with energy drops to keep me safe.

oh, dont take me wrong, I agree with that too. I find Hysteria, Exalted Blade and WoF complete freaks. The difference, however, is that Equinox has a pseudo-channeled ability in addition to a channeled ability. Pacify can be very, very energy demanding. Not to mention how channeled abilities no longer prevent energy leeching; something that, while I do find it fair... Getting my energy from 250 to zero in seconds between Pacify, Mend, and energy leeching is... Really, really frustrating.

On most frames, Energy Overflow is pleasent.

On Night Form Equinox, it is borderline essential (unless you run max efficiency. And even than...).

Even more now that Peaceful Provocation demands build up by getting damaged (so you have to be suicidal to charge it), and you can kiss it goodbie if your energy goes away (and god forbid you DARE to change aspect).

Hell.

That augment enerves me.

Edited April 1, 2016 by tnccs215

[--Q--uaint]

8 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

I find Hysteria, Exalted Blade and WoF complete freaks.

Hysteria being utterly indefinite would be bad, yes… but it already is. You can get the drain low enough that the odd energy orb every so often will sustain you indefinitely… on an ability that makes you invulnerable and gives you some of the better levels of DPS in the game. Sure, you could make an argument about people just AFKing in Hysteria, but its duration is long enough they can do it anyway, and the AFK timer will eventually put a stop to it anyway.

Exalted Blade can be easily fueled by Rage/Lifestrike. It’s indefinite.

WoF is a weird case. TBH, I'd prefer the ability changed so that it’s not so perfectly tailored to killing dispersed enemies. Make it an ability that’s not just removing any amount of effort from low level content and little else, and we'll talk.

[Elydir]

Some stuff they talked about in todays devstream:

Volt Rework: 

• Shock: Basically the same, with more synergy. They mentioned with shield but didnt specify how.
• Speed: You now drop a portal that lets allies pick up Speed – opt in for allies, rather than forced. (Maybe they’ll have a dodge cancel instead like Banish.)
• Electric Shield: Much bigger, new shape, clearer.
• Overload: Complete rework. No longer interacts with lights – less than 1/3 of maps are rigged for it now. Now uses the ground as a tracing pattern to enemies and turns them into tesla coils; it scales on the health of the units. The longer there isn’t an enemy to hit, the bigger the charge is. Shock can charge this up faster. Still needs some work on how it spreads, presently lasts forever, don’t want to have Duration cancel but need to think of a way to stop it.
• Passive: Static Buildup – the more time on the ground between attacks increases the damage of his next attack. Will have a cap.

Mag’s basically unchanged since last stream, no Crush update it seems.

Mesa’s Peacemaker will scale with pistol mods like other Exalted Weapons.

Personally I think the overload buff looks really cool, its basically the same but better, has a nice Chroma vibe to it. I really wanna know what they meant by synergy between Shock and Shield.

[Aquasurge]

28 minutes ago, Annon5150 said:

Some stuff they talked about in todays devstream:

Volt Rework: 

• Shock: Basically the same, with more synergy. They mentioned with shield but didnt specify how.
• Speed: You now drop a portal that lets allies pick up Speed – opt in for allies, rather than forced. (Maybe they’ll have a dodge cancel instead like Banish.)
• Electric Shield: Much bigger, new shape, clearer.
• Overload: Complete rework. No longer interacts with lights – less than 1/3 of maps are rigged for it now. Now uses the ground as a tracing pattern to enemies and turns them into tesla coils; it scales on the health of the units. The longer there isn’t an enemy to hit, the bigger the charge is. Shock can charge this up faster. Still needs some work on how it spreads, presently lasts forever, don’t want to have Duration cancel but need to think of a way to stop it.
• Passive: Static Buildup – the more time on the ground between attacks increases the damage of his next attack. Will have a cap.

Mag’s basically unchanged since last stream, no Crush update it seems.

Mesa’s Peacemaker will scale with pistol mods like other Exalted Weapons.

Personally I think the overload buff looks really cool, its basically the same but better, has a nice Chroma vibe to it. I really wanna know what they meant by synergy between Shock and Shield.

they probably mean it make the shield electrified. 

[--Q--uaint]

39 minutes ago, Annon5150 said:

(Maybe they’ll have a dodge cancel instead like Banish.)

That would be horrible. Canceling Banish via rolling is reasonable since nothing can hit you if you are in the Rift, so you don't have a good reason to roll.

40 minutes ago, Annon5150 said:

Complete rework. No longer interacts with lights – less than 1/3 of maps are rigged for it now.

Sounds good to me. Mild sadness, but sounds waaay better than currently.

[Aquasurge]

2 hours ago, ChronoEclipse said:

Sounds good to me. Mild sadness, but sounds waaay better than currently.

agreed - right now volt needs a few minor tweaks to his wip rework like scaling and an addition or two to speed.

hopefully, shock ad overload bypass armour.

[Archwizard]

I'm curious about the passives - since they said they were going to do one block pass at everyone's passives all at once.

Volt, I think it would work spectacularly if instead of building up from time on the ground (which also encourages just standing still), it was affected by distance traveled (creating synergy with Speed).

^{_{Still want Chroma to have wings.}}

[taiiat]

3 hours ago, Annon5150 said:

• Speed: You now drop a portal that lets allies pick up Speed – opt in for allies, rather than forced. (Maybe they’ll have a dodge cancel instead like Banish.)
• presently lasts forever, don’t want to have Duration cancel but need to think of a way to stop it.
• Passive: Static Buildup – the more time on the ground between attacks increases the damage of his next attack. Will have a cap.

a pickup is fine - but we don't need more cancer that is Roll to cancel. if i get something from an Ally, if i want to keep it, i now can't use Parkour? no offense but get f...ed, no thanks.
more of that is more cancer. no. absolutely not. unacceptable.

opt IN rather than opt OUT is better for everyone.

- - - - - 

similar to Melee Counter would be okay, but in the way it should be. (which for Melee is the Timer drops a Tier at a time rather than canceling all of it) meaning, has to attack every N often or it expires, but will tally up hits, and loses a hit every N time. if it sits at 0 for longer than N, then expires.

- - - - - 

sliding feels better connected to static buildup than just being on the ground....

[--Q--uaint]

10 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Volt, I think it would work spectacularly if instead of building up from time on the ground (which also encourages just standing still), it was affected by distance traveled (creating synergy with Speed).

Yeah, it did seem odd to me that they were planning to tie it to time.

10 hours ago, taiiat said:

sliding feels better connected to static buildup than just being on the ground….

Perhaps make the static buildup based on distance, with a bonus for sliding?

 

I gave a little thought to Nezha the other day, and have some ideas to make him his own man so people stop complaining he’s just a second Rhino.

Archwizard’s stuff for reference:

Nezha
- Fire Walker’s width is affected by Range mods. 
- Blazing Chakram’s base healing radius increased. Excess healing is rolled over onto shields.
- Warding Halo’s absorption period begins at the start of the cast animation rather than following.
- Divine Spears will impale flying enemies to the ground, a la Freeze effects.
- Consideration: Blazing Chakram damage scales with melee mods.
- Consideration: Blazing Chakram’s number of bounces is affected by Strength, flight distance is affected by Range and speed is affected by Duration

I agree on Fire Walker. I think its drain should maybe also be reduced, since it drains twice as much as Hysteria…

I like the idea of Blazing Chakram scaling with melee mods, and pulsing health based on the damage it dealt when it returns to Nezha.
I feel like the number of bounces would scale with Duration, and Strength could scale the speed?

Here’s the big change: Swap his #3 and #4, and change them mechanically to compensate.

Divine Spears (#3) would hurl a single spear on cast, and impale any eligible target(s) it hit on the way to the next surface. Once it reaches a surface, it begins generating a field (5–10 meters base?) that impales any eligible targets as the current Divine Spears. Nezha would begin channeling energy to maintain the field.
The impaling damage would be the same as now.
The interesting part is that 40/60/80/100% of all damage dealt to any victim of the spears would be copied to all other targets on the spears. (The impale damage from the skill would be copied, but no other damage directly from the ability itself.) This would not scale with power strength.
If any victim on the initial spear dies (including from their initial impale damage; in this case, the effect would wait until the AoE is established), 30/60/90/120% of their maximum HP is dealt to all current victims as Finisher damage. This is affected by Power Strength.
The full impale damage is dealt to each target again when the ability is un-channeled, but is not copied to each other victim.

Warding Halo (#4) becomes a hybrid of its current state, Snowglobe, and Absorb.
Nezha summons a protective barrier, and begins channeling energy to sustain it. The barrier is now a sphere (5–10 meters base?) surrounding Nezha. Any enemy inside of the field would take Heat damage every second with a ~25% proc chance. All allies (including Nezha) inside the barrier would be granted the same anti-CC benefits Hallowed Ground grants.
The barrier blocks incoming fire, but allows outgoing fire. Damage dealt to the outside of the barrier drains energy (like Absorb, but less costly) and is stored for later release.
Upon un-channeling Warding Halo, the stored damage is released on all enemies inside the barrier’s range as Heat or Slash damage with guaranteed proc.

This would give him team support/tanking ability, along with low-area but prolonged CC and damage buffing… and a relatively unique way to inflict scaling damage in a small area.

Edited April 2, 2016 by ChronoEclipse
Nezha stuffs