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

[Gurpgork]

2 hours ago, JFK_Had_No_Revives said:

ps: i'm french, don't be mad if i made mistakes.

Your English is actually some of the better English I've seen on the Internet (in general), so kudos for that.

[--Q--uaint]

4 hours ago, JFK_Had_No_Revives said:

don’t be mad if i made mistakes.

*snort* Your username is either horrible or hilarious, and I can’t decide which.

As Gurpgork said, your English is quite good. I could certainly nitpick weird grammatical structures, but I'm not in the mood and it wouldn’t probably help anything anyway.

 

On topic:

I had another idea relating to the “sound mine” sort of thing for Banshee and Sound Quake. Why make a separate mine when you can make the enemies into mines?

The idea here is that Banshee marks all the enemies in range, then can detonate the enemies at a later point in much the same manner as Shield Polarize. As with my other idea, the enemies would be left in a twitching animation for a bit after the initial burst of damage.

The detonation would be the hold-cast, allowing you to mark multiple times. The marking would stack up to twice (Or maybe more? Not sure if it'd be OP), yielding 2.5x damage and 1.5x the CC duration.

Marking would cost 25 energy, with detonation costing 75.

[tnccs215]

1 hour ago, ChronoEclipse said:

On topic:

I had another idea relating to the “sound mine” sort of thing for Banshee and Sound Quake. Why make a separate mine when you can make the enemies into mines?

The idea here is that Banshee marks all the enemies in range, then can detonate the enemies at a later point in much the same manner as Shield Polarize. As with my other idea, the enemies would be left in a twitching animation for a bit after the initial burst of damage.

The detonation would be the hold-cast, allowing you to mark multiple times. The marking would stack up to twice (Or maybe more? Not sure if it'd be OP), yielding 2.5x damage and 1.5x the CC duration.

Marking would cost 25 energy, with detonation costing 75.

Uhm,.. I dont know if that wouldn't just become a new shield polarize. Besides, it doesn't seem to fit her theme. It looks like its just... There. Sorry...

 

Also, if you allow me some stuff regarding Energy efficiency: Is it me, or DE is starting to make more and more powers that allow spamming without being exploitative? They seem to be becoming more directed to support, utility and situational CC, and away from the happy nuking it used to be. Most of the times, spamming is either a necessity (casters, and lets be honest, I dont dislike spamming powers as long as that doesnt trivialize gameplay) or redundant.

I mean, take Inaros, for example. His kit is centered around crowd control and healing, yet we don't have Radial Blind'esque powers that can lockdown entire rooms. The closest thing to that woud be desiccation, which is basically a better sonic boom, working in a cone and without trivializing everything without effort. Sand storm is substantially expensive to use, a good counter balance to his constant energy-- I mean c'mon, everyone knows you have rage strapped on him-- And even his ultimate offers things that are incredibly situational (in a good way), its CC being conditional and its heal depending on number of affected enemies, forcing you to actually think where is the best place to cast.

Ivara, who is generally considered to be a perfect frame, also possesses powers that are very tactical and situational, much more than a simple "pressXtoY". No one spams cloak arrows because its idiotic and unnecessary, her inviciblity is anything but bland, and her ultimate is not nuking, and offers her the offensive power she generally lacks.

Hell, the same applies to Nezha, Wukong, Reworked Saryn and Atlas, all of them of various quality. Either the spam is redundant/unnecessary (Fire walker, blazing chackram, Warding Halo, Defy, spores and toxic lash, all channeled), part of the ability (blazing chackram, Atlas' 1, wukong's1, etc), or otherwise impossible to spam (Nezha's divine spears). Abilities became less powerful, but more interactive, situational, and overall useful. The only ability that might become crazy powerful with an EV trin on the squad would be Saryn's Molt and Miasma, and even those require positioning and investment through spores.

What I mean is that, ever since equinox (not included), there seems to have been a radical chance in ability paradigm. They are much more "gimicky", they leave the killing as we know it for the guns, offering other things. And those abilities that do indeed kill aren't reduced to nukes. And, honestly, I really like that. Powers are more unique now, more interesting and engaging.

To those before and including Equinox, an unlimited pool of energy (through EV) means being a god. Now, you only need to have enough energy to cast when you need to cast.

Is it just me that gets this feeling?

[--Q--uaint]

8 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

Uhm,.. I dont know if that wouldn’t just become a new shield polarize. Besides, it doesn’t seem to fit her theme. It looks like its just… There. Sorry…

The intent was that the amount of damage would be flat, so not like Shield Polarize. Your criticism is fair; my idea was that the “mark” was Banshee setting up the enemies to resonate, and detonation is generating a tone sufficient to make them resonate destructively.

9 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

They are much more “gimicky”, they leave the killing as we know it for the guns, offering other things. And those abilities that do indeed kill aren’t reduced to nukes.

Divine Spears thinks you're funny. Building for minimum duration (which bumps up strength and efficiency nicely) allows you to spam it quite nicely. The damage is superior to Radial Javelin, it doesn’t have  a target limit, and it doesn’t care about line of sight. It really is a simple nuke.

Saryn can pop a Molt, then apply Torid blasts and spam Spores for some fairly impressive nuking potential.

[RealPandemonium]

9 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

snip

It's not just you, although things like Landslide and Wukong (in general) are of questionable calibration.  What remains to be seen is if DE will be willing to rework Loki, Trinity, Nova, Mirage, etc to remove the irreconcilably exploitable elements from them.  

[tnccs215]

oh, 45 minutes ago, RealPandemonium said:

It's not just you, although things like Landslide and Wukong (in general) are of questionable calibration.  What remains to be seen is if DE will be willing to rework Loki, Trinity, Nova, Mirage, etc to remove the irreconcilably exploitable elements from them.  

oh, no doubt. Didnt say they are perfect now, they arent. Defy is the game breaking itself for example. But they seem different, and seem better. More complex, more theme-focused one way or another.

And yes. I'm not ao secretly expecting,for DE to,come around one day on the patch notes and say "oh, btw, invisibility is less effective, radial disarm is duration based, molecular prime no longer slows enemies, and blinded enemies no longuer are idiots. Also, Blessing has a capped damage reduction and doesnt count self inflicted damage, and EV was completely reworked. Have fuuun!

1 hour ago, ChronoEclipse said:

The intent was that the amount of damage would be flat, so not like Shield Polarize. Your criticism is fair; my idea was that the “mark” was Banshee setting up the enemies to resonate, and detonation is generating a tone sufficient to make them resonate destructively.

Divine Spears thinks you're funny. Building for minimum duration (which bumps up strength and efficiency nicely) allows you to spam it quite nicely. The damage is superior to Radial Javelin, it doesn’t have  a target limit, and it doesn’t care about line of sight. It really is a simple nuke.

Saryn can pop a Molt, then apply Torid blasts and spam Spores for some fairly impressive nuking potential.

so that's why I've read somewhere that Nezha's better at Draco than excal...

Still, its no match for EB, and Nezha isn't that popular... But I don't know. They simply feel different. And that with Saryn still requires more work than before.

 

1 hour ago, ChronoEclipse said:

The intent was that the amount of damage would be flat, so not like Shield Polarize. Your criticism is fair; my idea was that the “mark” was Banshee setting up the enemies to resonate, and detonation is generating a tone sufficient to make them resonate destructively.

mh... No offense, but I find flat damage even worse. It'll fall flat on its face with scaling, and be reduced to a WoF's inevitably. I think we can work out something better.

[Archwizard]

There's a reddit thread presently going discussing transferring some Conclave augments to PVE. Normally I'm not into the PVP scene so I wasn't even aware of half of these augments.

Of particular note, the thread itself calls for "Mesa's Waltz" (an augment that, for a small energy cost for each movement, allows Mesa to move by rolling while Peacemaker is active) and "Rumbled" (an augment that replaces Atlas' Rumblers with an armor that exchanges his weapons, at the cost of his mobility - unlike other Exalted weapons, it's duration-based).

Personally, I love how thematic and well-balanced the two of these augments are.
In the case of Mesa's Waltz, I've always been against having Peacemaker allow players to move while active, as it's an intentional limiting factor of the effect to prevent players from having it up at all times; however, allowing you limited mobility at an additional cost sounds perfectly fair, as it allows the player to quickly reposition or evade in a pinch while still not allowing you to run-and-gun with aimbot active (especially since you can't shoot while rolling) and encouraging you to disable it if you need to book it. Given the direction that Artemis Bow went, I wouldn't even be against making this augment a baseline effect of Peacemaker, on top of allowing you to charge Ballistic Battery as an alt-fire.
As for Rumbled, Atlas' current ultimate doesn't really make sense in his kit. He can summon an entourage and that's "neat", but they don't contribute to his kit in any way. Even its augment presents a downgrade! With some modifications for scalability in PVE (swapping out that health bonus for an armor bonus, for instance), Rumbled would make a far better augment than Titanic Rumbler, while still leaving a place for his other abilities.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Archwizard

[taiiat]

frankly, if you just weren't locked into place with Sound Quake, it would immediately become a pretty good Ability. a sort of massive CC storm.
i wouldn't even be mad if you could move around but would still be in the Sound Quake Animation - and therefore sliding around like Drover Bursas.

but if you want to replace it, it had better function in a not too dissimilar vein - otherwise a bit of Synergy that Banshee already has will be lost. so still needs to affect Enemies in a Radial fashion of some sort.

39 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

As for Rumbled

i don't see why we can't have both. make Titanic Rumbler not an actual downgrade, and then let Players use the cool Augment in PvE as well.

[Archwizard]

Just now, taiiat said:

i don't see why we can't have both. make Titanic Rumbler not an actual downgrade, and then let Players use the cool Augment in PvE as well.

Because it's hard to make Titanic Rumbler a proper sidegrade (like augments dance around being), without massively expanding the number of effects it has to create additional tuning knobs.

Everything about Rumbled is a sidegrade. Lose mobility, gain armor. Lose current weapons, gain different (not necessarily even better) weapons. Lose minions, gain control.

Rumbled is just outright better than Titanic Rumbler, since it at least has some scaling. Plus it gives an opportunity to emphasize the taunt on standard minions.

[Archwizard]

Been lagging behind for the past couple weeks, decided to sit down and read the past few pages I'd been skimming. (I originally got lost about 4 pages back reading in-depth reworks.)

Well of Life:
I wonder if there's a way to play on the "health multiplier" element for the players' benefit - cast WoL on a player and they temporarily get a multiplier of bonus health. I question this since it sort of borrows from Chroma however, and still leaves the fate of Blessing up in the air. Still, the only frame we have with a targeted heal effect is Limbo with an augment, which seems somewhat backwards.
Plus there's no way for the Trinity herself to benefit from it without the current enemy-targeted function. Granting, you can just have an effect like that be an augment for WoL, but that feels... wrong somehow to not have direct-healing be a baseline function without Blessing.
A couple pages back, blaes and Azamagon reworked Well of Life so that it could function similarly to Mind Control with an unlimited amount of healing in an AoE around each pulse, but nothing was mentioned towards Blessing's replacement. They stressed that Link could gain all of the mitigation benefits, but the problem there is that redirecting all of the damage to Trinity to redirect it toward enemies sounds like Absorb.
Really, we just need more discussion on what to do with Blessing, in general, before we can finalize any solution for Well of Life.

Volt rework:
If nothing else, Electric Shield needs a way to be picked up by Volt to maximize its synergy. Perhaps if hold-cast, or cast while Speed is active.

Artemis Bow: 
I like Azamagon's idea of having the bow start with the fan and charge into a narrow blast. Probably will throw it into the OP.

Equinox:
Something I've always been disappointed about with Equinox was that you really have no reason to ever swap; I will admit even I'm guilty of just using a Maim build. The armor and speed buffs are really too weak to compel you to switch at 20 second intervals (and honestly that kind of interval seems too quick). What I would have originally liked is if she had a kind of "meter" that built up as she used her abilities (per-ability to allow her time to charge her ultimates), forcing her to swap once it built up to a certain point but allowing her to compel it early with Metamorphosis for additional effects in the next form, so she doesn't just Metamorph back the instant the meter forces one.
I dunno, maybe it's too "hands on", but it feels like there should be an thematic push for the player to balance each side out.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Archwizard

[Azamagon]

On 2016-04-04 at 11:45 PM, ChronoEclipse said:

1) Nah. It’s been a thing for MOAs and only MOAs for quite a while now. I think it’s intended. It certainly discourages you from casting Invisibility while standing still….

2) Though, TBH, it’s only a teamplay thing (since Ash himself is invisible), and most anyone running a Duration Ash will be running Smoke Shadow. So it seems kinda pointless? I dunno.
I suppose it could go along with a rework to Smoke Bomb itself: The cloud lasts ~4–5x current Smoke Bomb duration, but Ash’s invisibility only lasts ~75% of the current duration. Ash may re-enter the cloud to renew his invisibility duration.

3) Fair point. I guess we just agree to disagree here?

4) I suppose not. If she is getting the ability to recast Silence, though, she'll want something else out of her #4. Giving her the ability to do damage with it seems like a good plan.

5) Obviously. Doesn’t really mesh with the rest of her abilities' aesthetics, though, I think. *shrug*

6) It’s really weird lol. The stealth multiplier does seem to apply after a few seconds or whatever… but the invisibility from Molt would already be over by then. Letting Miasma act as a blind would be a nice little melee-Toxic-Lash-synergy-perk-thing.

1) I didn't mean their general "keep firing" attitude, I meant more the fact that they can keep blindly firing against walls (which is kinda funny really). But the fact that they DO behave like that would be a good counterbalance to what you pointed out before: Corpus tilesets tend to be more narrow halls and such, thus breaking LoS could be potentially overpowered against Corpus. Cue MOAs and their blindfiring for counterbalancing that point! :)

2) Eh, I'm fine with Smoke Screen as it is (Sidenote: I feel people VASTLY underestimate its power when comparing it to Invisibility, as its stagger can be gamechanging for your survivability), but I wouldn't mind your version either.

3) Sure :)

4) Now you really made me think about a slight redundancy in her kit:
Sonic Boom is her snap / emergency CC (and could be her innate sniping button, with that beam I suggested)
Sonar is her damage-amp and enemy location tool, but a wonky one at that, because it requires constant recasting AND aiming well
Silence is a stun-aura, with a minor, stealth niche bonus.
Soundquake is a big CC button, but with the problem of rooting her in place.

I find Sonic Boom rather fine, and Soundquake too, if not for the rooted-in-place problem (which could be easily fixed, the mine-idea being one of those)

But, then we have Silence. Do we really need a THIRD CC in her kit? I mean, that was added onto it because its deafening bonus was rather ... niche (and downright useless once enemies knows your presence). And, how could it be changed so Power Strength mattered for it too?

And then Sonar, implied by its very name, couldn't it work as a form of aura, similar to how Silence works now?
Not to mention, it's "stealth" part (the minimap marking) is kind of pointless for stealth unless you constantly spam it. As an aura, that would be rectified.

Then it kind of hit me: What if Sonar and Silence were more or less combined? Combine all their traits, except for the autostun feature (could be an augment, replacing Savage Silence?).

Thus, when this combined "Sonar" is active it does all of these things:
* Mechanically, it is a durationbased aura which applies buffs to allies and debuffs to enemies when they get inside it (the buff/debuff lingering a bit on them after they leave)
* She silences her and her allies' weapons inside its radius
* She marks enemies with Sonar weakspots and shows their locations on the minimap, as well as deafens the enemies

Voilá! The sneaky part of Silence still remains in her kit, Sonar is less of a hassle for a damageamp and stealthtool.
The problem with this though, is, would this combination make sense? Does the ability need a renaming?

Another good thing is that it leaves her with the possibility of a completely new third ability. What would that be though?

(Think about the awesome synergy with these new little additions and changes: Sonar to sneak and/or to know where enemies might be, place a mine close to where enemies are incoming, back away real quick (maybe the third ability could be a mobility tool?), CC them with the soundquake, then shoot/SonicBoom-snipe them in their Sonar-spots while they are CC'd.).

I'm getting really, really tired here, so I'm gonna stop rambling about this now :P

5) You mean the mine-idea? Or the physical version (which I certainly am NOT promoting)?
I just really like it as an (energy)mine, as it keeps its current style, but frees her up from movement, which is all it needs.

6) Well, in the end, ANY added utility for Miasma would be good. Something along the lines of stealth, blinding and/or LoS-breaking kind of mechanics sounds fitting to me.

[Azamagon]

Glad you liked the Artemis Bows idea, @Archwizard :) Just please don't forget the part where the charge's merging of arrow(s) also get a progressively increased vertical hitbox (like I described it: Think becoming similar to vertical Exalted Blade waves). After all, the vertical spread that currently exists DOES have a valid use right now (when up on wires, mainly, due to the different attackpositioning), so losing it entirely would be sad. I use it somewhat frequently myself.

As for Trin: Well of Life being the main healing tool (I mainly promote it with the mechanic as a non-target requiring placed healing well, placed similarly to Decoy) and Blessing being a group-Iron-Skin-esque ability solves a lot of problems: WoL becomes her main sustaining tool, while Blessing is the emergency tool which no longer can be abused (nearly as much), since you can't exploit it with QT and selfdamaging weapons.

[--Q--uaint]

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

Thus, when this combined “Sonar” is active it does all of these things:
* Mechanically, it is a durationbased aura which applies buffs to allies and debuffs to enemies when they get inside it (the buff/debuff lingering a bit on them after they leave)
* She silences her and her allies' weapons inside its radius
* She marks enemies with Sonar weakspots and shows their locations on the minimap, as well as deafens the enemies

Do you actually play Banshee? Sonar stacking is basically the one thing Banshee can do that no one else can. Her augment plays to that even more with Resonance. Making Sonar not recastable would be the single largest nerf to Banshee I could think aside from some other heavy Sonar nerf.

If you're gonna try to defend your version of Sonar as good, you had better find something compelling for Banshee to actually be useful/good at.

Also, I could easily counter that a refreshable Silence would invalidate the existence of Sound Quake. Now she has a maintainable CC ability that doesn’t lock her in place and boosts her stealth rather than ruining it. TBH, you can minimize the duration to the point where you can do that, but you might as well bring a Blind Mirage at that point :P

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

You mean the mine-idea?

Yes. Maybe it’s just me. I dunno. I feel like Sound Quake could probably be pretty overpowered if it didn’t lock Banshee in place, though. (Given the drain on it, she'd have to wreck Sonar to make any real use of it, so I suppose it’s whatever.)

4 hours ago, Archwizard said:

discussing transferring some Conclave augments to PVE

I've been rather salty ever since I did PvP exclusively so I could get my hands on that Volt augment… and it was incompatible with PvE. I don’t know what I'd replace on my Speed build, but it would go on somewhere and I would be the happiest camper. Actually, I'd be the opposite of a camper.

3 hours ago, Archwizard said:

but nothing was mentioned towards Blessing’s replacement.

We've definitely tossed around a number of ideas for that. I think the reigning one at this point is either complete replacement or some kind of full-team duration-limited Iron Skin. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, anyone.

5 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

Still, its no match for EB

EB is not suitable for mindlessly AoEing things to get buku affinity in Draco. Radial Javelin is, so that’s what’s being compared. If you want to compare EB to something in Nezha’s kit…. compare it to Blazing Chakram XD

5 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

And that with Saryn still requires more work than before.

No, it doesn’t. Saryn actually had to move around to be an effective nuker on Draco before, due to her restricted range. Spores can spread to pretty much all the spawns from the boxes, and still doesn’t require any change of aim except when you re-up Molt.

5 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

It'll fall flat on its face with scaling

My idea did contain crowd control, and Banshee can make literally anything do millions of damage. I know a guy who’s hit damage cap (slightly over 2 billion) with a bulletjump.

4 hours ago, taiiat said:

frankly, if you just weren’t locked into place with Sound Quake, it would immediately become a pretty good Ability. a sort of massive CC storm.
i wouldn’t even be mad if you could move around but would still be in the Sound Quake Animation - and therefore sliding around like Drover Bursas.

This would work, I guess. The drain would still be too high and the benefit too low, though, IMO.

4 hours ago, taiiat said:

but if you want to replace it, it had better function in a not too dissimilar vein - otherwise a bit of Synergy that Banshee already has will be lost. so still needs to affect Enemies in a Radial fashion of some sort.

Give us recastable Silence and we don’t need Sound Quake at all. Playing Banshee properly simply does not involve using Soundquake unless you're CCing to cover for a teammate. In solo play, it’s just a good way to waste energy. None of that would change with the addition of mobility.

[Archwizard]

2 hours ago, Azamagon said:

Just please don't forget the part where the charge's merging of arrow(s) also get a progressively increased vertical hitbox

... why are we not leaving the bow alone again, then? Because right now it sounds like all we're doing is swapping the two, to let you hip-fire AoEs.

25 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

We've definitely tossed around a number of ideas for that. I think the reigning one at this point is either complete replacement or some kind of full-team duration-limited Iron Skin. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, anyone.

My problem with that is that it's not really... reactive. In fact, you have no reason not to keep spamming it for party-wide immunity (especially since unlike a standard Iron Skin, you have a hard Duration cap, so you need to recast).

The one thing I will say about Blessing is, with its current design, you really do have to react to use it; it encourages playing like a healer.
^{_{Easily abused, of course, but that's not the main reason to change it...}}

Edited April 6, 2016 by Archwizard

[taiiat]

14 hours ago, ChronoEclipse said:

drain would still be too high and the benefit too low, though, IMO.

Give us recastable Silence and we don’t need Sound Quake at all. Playing Banshee properly simply does not involve using Soundquake unless you're CCing to cover for a teammate. In solo play, it’s just a good way to waste energy. None of that would change with the addition of mobility.

ofcourse. Energy cost is a different story.

Sound Quake can be a room clearing nuke if you spread Sonar well enough. this is actually interesting because it requires using multiple Abilities and it's not press one press two and everything dies either - it'll nuke some of the Enemies but others will survive.
it's an interesting interaction.

Edited April 6, 2016 by taiiat

[--Q--uaint]

3 hours ago, Archwizard said:

My problem with that is that it’s not really… reactive. In fact, you have no reason not to keep spamming it for party-wide immunity (especially since unlike a standard Iron Skin, you have a hard Duration cap, so you need to recast).

The one thing I will say about Blessing is, with its current design, you really do have to react to use it; it encourages playing like a healer.

Hmmm. Perhaps have a flat heal (100–200 at max?) and say 1+3*<highest % of missing health> seconds of invulnerability for a permanent Iron Skin-like effect that has <largest amount of missing health> HP? Recasting during the invincibility would be impossible, and recasts would replace the current Blessing-Skin instances.

This gives back on-demand invulnerability, but only if your squad needs it. It also inhibits abuse by protecting you from your own self-damage.

[tnccs215]

 

12 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Equinox:
Something I've always been disappointed about with Equinox was that you really have no reason to ever swap; I will admit even I'm guilty of just using a Maim build. The armor and speed buffs are really too weak to compel you to switch at 20 second intervals (and honestly that kind of interval seems too quick). What I would have originally liked is if she had a kind of "meter" that built up as she used her abilities (per-ability to allow her time to charge her ultimates), forcing her to swap once it built up to a certain point but allowing her to compel it early with Metamorphosis for additional effects in the next form, so she doesn't just Metamorph back the instant the meter forces one.
I dunno, maybe it's too "hands on", but it feels like there should be an thematic push for the player to balance each side out.

Mh...

The thing is, I believe that if you give players reasons to change, instead of obligating them to do so, they will change. If they don't, their loss, they're the ones losing half her potential.

If both forms where good at doing what they are supposed to do, and where so at similar levels, than there really is no reason not to be constantly changing according to the situation at hand. Problem is, not only both forms have different levels of effectiveness at their role (lets be honest: Without peaceful provocation, Day Form is multiple times more effective as a damage dealer and team buffer than night form is as a team supporter, enemy debuffer, and healer), her current metamorphosis mechanics actively discourage you from using it. Specially with peaceful provocation. The temporary buffs that metamorphosis grants are little more than adding insult to injury. "gee, I should change to night form to get the shield and armor buff" said no. One. Ever. What they do say is "oh, look at my buffs slowly draining away.... Why do I bother?".

Your idea wouldn't give players reasons to actively change, it would simply give them no other choice. I simply have to oppose it. I think that you should benefit players that change, instead of harming those that don't, or forcing them to. The timed, dissipating buffs are a good idea on paper, but you said it yourself: They are too small and too short to be worth it. They are more a teasing than anything (And if they weren't insultuous enough, the body got kicked again with Duality's ridiculously low duration. 7 bloody seconds. On a range demanding frame. On a power that is the equivalent of running into a nullifier bubble with a "tap tap" on your shoulder everytime you activate it. Come on DE, do you even use her?). No, the status quo is not good enough. If it where me, metamorphosis would add distinguishable and permanent buffs to each form's stats and ONLY on top of that temporary, decaying buffs would be applied (plus the whole "ability transition instead of deactivation" thing. But I've already repeated myself to the point Im just being annoying). This buffs would have its duration substantially increased to the current ones, and they would be slightly better. They would also only decay after half the duration has passed, having their maximum value up until that point.

Some people proposed to had thematically fitting aoe burst with metamorphosis. Personally, I find that interesting, but I prefer to keep Metamorphosis similar to how it is, but improved.

Now, @Archwizard, quite a while back you mentioned how Mend doesn't require the stun as Maim does, because Day form does not have any Crowd Controling skills. While it is true that Day form lacks tremendously in the CC aspect if it wasn't for Maim's stun, I have to say... Night form doesn't really excell on that department either. Yes, she has Rest. However Rest's "reasonable" range was little more than a bandaid fix for Night Forms overall inferiority. Rest was obviously a power design to take care of key individuals, not entire hords. And unless you go max range (and sometimes, even if you go with max range), it isn't a great CC ability either (it has an annoying tendencies of not putting to sleep just that damn napalm you really wanted to). Rest spam is an exploitation, it just isn't that much of one. I don't think Mend should be dependent on it to be castable. I'd rather reduce Rest's range and add a stun to Mend. I mean, to say that it doesn't need feels like saying that Scarab Swarn shouldn't have the stun because you already have dizecation, and that neither should Silence because you already have Sonic Boom. 

Alternatively, we can simply increase Mend's casting speed substantially. Though I'd rather go with the stun.

@Azamagon, I noticed that you edited the post in which you answered to me about Equinox's localization problems. You are right, Mend does indeed require you to be first up close to enemies, and only after to squad mates. Even if we altered Pacify as we discussed (making Night Form stay close to allies over enemies), indeed that problem remains... What if we impose different ranges for each effec? A large aura (base 30 meters) defines the area in which enemy kills charge the pool, while the dome (and the stun, if you all agree with me) would have a smaller one (maybe the base 18 meters we have now?). 

 

 

 

I apologize for not participating so much in the discussion of other frames beyond Equinox. It is simply because it's Equinox is the only frame in which I have spent a lot of energy analyzing and discussing her flaws and how to improve her. I simply don't feel like I have enough expertise nor the energy to discuss other frames. Incredibly selfish, but I simply don't think I'd be of much use

Edited April 6, 2016 by tnccs215

[--Q--uaint]

5 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

Incredibly selfish

I disagree. I bowed out of the Equinox discussion a while back because my involvement with Equinox consists of four things: Maim is awesome, Provoke is amazing (particularly with Speed), Rest allows oneshotting Juggernaughts, and Duality is basically the only reason I've ever used the 'frame much at all.

[Azamagon]

15 hours ago, Archwizard said:

... why are we not leaving the bow alone again, then? Because right now it sounds like all we're doing is swapping the two, to let you hip-fire AoEs.

It actually becomes quite a bit of a difference. Let me explain:

Current quick shot: A fan of arrows, spread vertically. For mobile gameplay, this is only useful for taking out single targets, as enemies don't stack vertically (not often at least). Where it DOES have a use though, is when you are on top of a wire. From there, you can kill a line of enemies coming at you in a (conga)line.

Currrent charged shot: A fan of arrows, spread horizontally. This shot has use both in general gameplay (wide dispersion is awesome due to how enemies spread out), and it works the same up from wires.

My suggested quick shot: The horizontal spread of arrows, for general wide-attacking gameplay etc

My suggested charge shot: You merge the arrows together progressively, narrowing the horizontal spread and, when at full charge, you end up with just one arrow. As they are merged together, they also gain more and more of a vertical hitbox, punchthrough and less arcing (full charge having 0 arcing). So to the point: What does that really do?

1) Well, for starters, it keeps its current useage up on wires, to attack enemies coming at you in a (conga)line.

2) Note that I also suggested that this supermerged arrow would get increased punchthrough. This means, it would be useful for congalines, ALSO while on the ground. This gives vertical versus horizontal actual varied situational uses on the ground: One for widespread groups, one for long lines.
Attacking long congalines is generally tougher to pull off, and with this change it would also be more rewarding: EACH enemy will be hurt by a damage equivalent of ALL arrows combined. With the quickshot, which is way easier and quicker to use, they maybe get hit by 2 arrows or so each. The powerdifference thus correlates to the mechanical difficulty. This goes for both ground fights and wirefights (wide shots are also way easier to use from up there).

So, it changes the current status from this
"Quickshot is fast, but generally not that useful + Chargeshot is slow, but is easy to use anywhere"
to
"Quickshot is fast and easy to use + Chargecharge is slower, harder to pull off, but also -VERY- rewarding"

Having an attack ONLY for emergency is rather meh, imo. We already have that on regular bows, so I thought changing that up for Ivara would make it a bit more interesting, more unique.

3) Its synergy with Navigator is obvious, controlling only one powerful arrow (instead of how it works now, just guiding one arrow out the entire cluster)

4) As per the gif from where I suggested this change originally: The potential gore it could cause.... The GORE! >:)

[Archwizard]

27 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

-snip-

Okay, but -

1) In the current design, it does higher damage per-target (generally an auto-headshot and probably one or two body shots to boot) on the hip-fire, and charges to include more targets. It's a pretty organic upgrade to standard bows when you consider that they share the same design, only on crack.

2) It's really not that hard to re-angle a spread shot from a zipline by repositioning and turning - especially when Ivara can just make another zipline.

3) What you're saying with the "keep verticality" bit is you want to have all of the upsides of the vertical shot (in terms of dealing single-target damage to multiple targets) with none of the inherent downsides (in terms of spread reducing the damage per-target).

4) As far as Navigator is concerned, by reducing the spread you'd still be firing a ton of arrows, just a ton of arrows fired from one concurrent point (a la current multishot mechanics). It'd still only affect one, unless you recoded the effect at maximum charge (which would just be a weird snap if you regularly charge it anything less than 100% of the way for very narrow shots).

Speaking as an Ivara player, a lot of the suggestions you're making are matters of splitting hairs that would be hard for the standard player to comprehend. Honestly, if you want verticality, it would be better to just revert what's in the OP and leave the bow alone entirely, or maybe turn the effect as written in the OP into an augment. The only reason I haven't made it an augment already is because it's a clear upgrade.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Archwizard

[Azamagon]

26 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

Okay, but -

1) In the current design, it does higher damage per-target (generally an auto-headshot and probably one or two body shots to boot) on the hip-fire, and charges to include more targets. It's a pretty organic upgrade to standard bows when you consider that they share the same design, only on crack.

2) It's really not that hard to re-angle a spread shot from a zipline by repositioning and turning - especially when Ivara can just make another zipline.

3) What you're saying with the "keep verticality" bit is you want to have all of the upsides of the vertical shot (in terms of dealing single-target damage to multiple targets) with none of the inherent downsides (in terms of spread reducing the damage per-target).

4) As far as Navigator is concerned, by reducing the spread you'd still be firing a ton of arrows, just a ton of arrows fired from one concurrent point (a la current multishot mechanics). It'd still only affect one, unless you recoded the effect at maximum charge (which would just be a weird snap if you regularly charge it anything less than 100% of the way for very narrow shots).

Speaking as an Ivara player, a lot of the suggestions you're making are matters of splitting hairs that would be hard for the standard player to comprehend. Honestly, if you want verticality, it would be better to just revert what's in the OP and leave the bow alone entirely, or maybe turn the effect as written in the OP into an augment. The only reason I haven't made it an augment already is because it's a clear upgrade.

1) True. I just find the vertical shot a bit too restricted in overall useage

2) Maybe not, but sometimes you might not have the time to reposition and such. Thus, having different angles available is a good thing

3) Sounds greedy, but, yes, that is what I mean, more or less. More to that on point 4

4) You have misunderstood me here.
By merging, I did not mean to only reduce the spread. I meant to also PHYSICALLY merge the arrows progressively together. Say, at no charge you get 7 arrows. At a slight charge, you fire only 6 arrows with the missing 7th arrow's damage split evenly as a bonus to those 6 arrows. A bit more charge means 5 arrows, etc, up until full charge there is just ONE arrow, but with the power of all 7 arrows combined together. I wouldn't even mind if this would cause charged shots to cost more energy the more they are charged, that the chargetime is quite a bit slower and/or that the damage per arrow is reduced slightly. I just want that gif's powershot (although, less extreme) to be available in Warframe :P
(As you may understand by now, this is DEFINITELY more of a "rule of cool" idea than an idea for balance)

Then, add to that, the fewer arrows launched, the lesser the HORIZONTAL spread, the more punchthrough they get, the more vertical energy/hitbox the arrows get, the less arcing they get (with full charge having no arcing) and maybe also the quicker the projectilespeed they get. (Which is why its energycost would go up, obviously)

Thus, back to Navigator: Due to that physical merging of the arrow, you'd actually control just one big, nasty, foe-cleaving arrow.

Hope that clears things up a bit. Sorry about this ridiculously strong suggestion, I just love bows with energy-powershots so much :)

[Cool3303]

Mind if I join the party?

First of some stuff about the Original post: (Just general stuff, nothing specific for now)

Spoiler

19 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Vacuum now is a universal Sentinel mod, Retrieve is now a universal Kubrow mod. Additional mods added to program focusing on cameras, shooting at traps, shooting containers, etc.

There is already a mod which modifies Carrier to shoot at crates (Simaris sells it, I forgot the name) you might want to mention it in the Original post.

 

Also I would appreciate a longer version of the unerpoint about energy efficency. Things that are missing are:

1. Zenurik/Energy Siphon in the new System (as Abilities would cost approx 2x more would 4 e/sec be acceptable at all?)
2. General cost of energy draining abilities in the new system (and/or in the current system) as they use both efficicency and duration.
3. Are your balance suggestions with or without these changes in mind?

There is also a MASSIVE gap between 2,5e/sec of Exalted blade 5e/sec of WOF and 10-15e/sec for Banshee Mesa and Chroma

Now for the ongoing discussions

10 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

Something I've always been disappointed about with Equinox was that you really have no reason to ever swap; I will admit even I'm guilty of just using a Maim build.

The problem here is not that there is no reason to swap (hint: there is healing) but the actual problem is how Warframe works.

Sustained healing has almost no purpose outside of infested missions (we have no reason to do these) and as such staying in the healing/night form to retain your healing potential makes no sense.

Now you could argue that the lack of effective CC - the other purpose of night - also has a lot of influence over this and while it certainly contributes to a degree.... those enemies dont get themselves killed (Bombard rockets anyone?)

IMO the notion that the way Equinox is played needs to be "fixed" is entirely wrong. Of course any build will focus on a form since switching is so cumbersome.

Changes are necessary however: I propose the following (additionally to the changes mentioned in the OP)

• Slightly increased range on rest (so Night works better as a main-cc power, giving Mend universal CC too is what you DO NOT want to do)
• Maim Damage conversion on day scaling with Powerstrength (rate from 75%->30% so it requires a bit strength to charge up fast)
  • Also Hyekka masters need less live lol, they alone charge enough to kill anything except themselves
• Rage now has a held (self centered) cast with the same range as Maim, so together you will get the same bang as before but endanger yourself should anything survive
  • I feel this is a necessary change since spamming rage on a opponent that dies as you sneeze at it defeats it purpose and just feels stupid (even if it is one handed fast cast)
    • You can argue that this would make sure nothing survives even more...however the margin of safety is all wasted damage ;)
  • Rest could get this too, while trading off duration for even more range
• Duplicate gets more than bloody 7 seconds duration

As for Banshee:

I think the biggest problem with Banshee (and her lack of usage)  is... no one needs more -single target- damage (sonar) and her CC is only mediocre (Soundwave,Silence,Soundquake) and since everything is annihilated so quickly.. why take Banshee in your teamcomp?

Also she sucks at stealth since she isn't invisible, can't ignore lasers and also can't teleport.... (not to mention silence not working properly currently, that is already in the Op though)

• With Sonar I would like to see a weaker damage boost on the entire enemy , stacking with the weakpoints
• Also the issue with enemies standing up being able to shoot but stagger immune really needs to be fixed ->hard ragdolling to a certain range?

22 hours ago, Azamagon said:

But, then we have Silence. Do we really need a THIRD CC in her kit? I mean, that was added onto it because its deafening bonus was rather ... niche (and downright useless once enemies knows your presence). And, how could it be changed so Power Strength mattered for it too?

For an example of how powerstrength would work:

• Silence: Banshee silences all weapons in range *insert fluffy description for AOE effect here*   ->This fixes that the power.... sucks for stealth
• Either effect A or B applies, chances are scaling with powerstrength
• Effect A chance, scaling inversely with powerstrength: Alerted enemies in range are distracted/unalerted for atleast 3 seconds scaling with duration->see above
  • So at minimum strength (40%) all enemies stop being alerted (maybe as a tradeoff semi-alert them at the end)
  • This means they are "functionally" blinded for (atleast) 3 seconds and cannot perceive you and after this, they would need to be alerted by other units (keep in mind everything is silenced, so they would pretty much need to see either you or one of their comrades die)
    • This also should include fully alerted enemies, they have to spot you or be alerted by enemies outside (for epic lulz)
    • Opening up that sweed buildpath for for a full CC Banshee
• Effect B Chance scaling with powerstrength: Enemies in range are deafened (and hold their ears for atleast 3 seconds scaling with duration)
• This is 100% the same old excep that it is 1 second shorter (approx) if you do not build for duration
• Atleast obviously means "it cannot get any shorter even with negative duration"

Ivara/Trinity

I feel I do not know too much about Ivaraand nerfing EV/inv Trinity in the current state of the game (Raids) is IMO a way too tricky subject.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Cool3303

[--Q--uaint]

2 hours ago, Archwizard said:

The only reason I haven’t made it an augment already is because it’s a clear upgrade.

The only reason augments exist is to upgrade powers. The mod takes up a modslot, and isn’t exilus. It should buff you in some significant way.

18 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

There is also a MASSIVE gap between 2,5e/sec of Exalted blade 5e/sec of WOF and 10–15e/sec for Banshee Mesa and Chroma

I was thinking recently: Given our changes to how energy works, I feel some changes to channeled powers' mechanics would be in order.

Burst sources of energy 100% work. We are nerfing EV’s infinite energy thing, and pads have a cooldown. I don’t think this is really abusable anymore.

Energy-over-time effects are unable to restore your energy, but they can prorate the drain on your power. Excal and Mesa have Energy Overflow on; Excal’s 2.5 drain is reduced to 0, and Mesa’s 15 drain is reduced to 11.
I think that’s a fair compromise between allowing people to regenerate energy freely while keeping channeled powers up, and forcing them to go without energy entirely because energy orbs aren’t a thing anymore.

23 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

no one needs more -single target- damage (sonar)

Do you play Banshee? Because Sonar ain’t single target. The addition of Resonance in particular makes it likely that many enemies will end up with their torsos/heads marked. Having the torso or head marked will provide Sonar’s damage buff to AoE Abilities and weapons, respectively.

25 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

Also she sucks at stealth

Or maybe… you’re bad at stealth? I realize she doesn’t have utter cheese mechanics like invisibility, but two out of her 3 powers significantly contribute to stealth runs.
The only qualm I have with Banshee’s stealthplay is that there’s a limit on how far away Sonar marks enemies on your minimap, and it’s shorter than my Sonar’s range.

28 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

With Sonar I would like to see a weaker damage boost on the entire enemy , stacking with the weakpoints

I feel this dilutes the uniqueness of the power too much.

34 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

Also the issue with enemies standing up being able to shoot but stagger immune really needs to be fixed ->hard ragdolling to a certain range?

Wat? Elucidate, please.

32 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

50% Chance scaling with powerstrength: Enemies in range are deafened (and hold their ears for atleast 2 seconds scaling with duration)

The guaranteed hard CC on Silence is one of Banshee’s saving graces for anything in the range of Ceres or above. Removing that lifeline would be… unhelpful to say the least.

I can’t really argue with making her CC scale with duration, but making the CC conditional on power strength would really limit her build options; you can no longer sacrifice power strength for survivability or anything else, since you have to make that 200% mark while keeping her other abilities still usable and useful.

Literally no 'frames at this point depend on power strength for their CC.

38 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

Opening up that sweed buildpath for for a full CC Banshee

lolwat. No. Other 'frames are better and will (most likely) always be better for CC than Banshee. Unalerting enemies is basically blinding them without making them blind. Or in your case, deaf either. This is a terrible idea.

40 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

nerfing EV/inv Trinity in the current state of the game (Raids) is IMO a way too tricky subject.

This is definitely a fair point, but EV shouldn’t be as necessary given the energy income we plan to hand out… and Bless Trin is frankly just out of whack OP.
The rest of the game would definitely need to be changed if Trin were nerfed in the way we're discussing.

21 hours ago, Azamagon said:

But, then we have Silence. Do we really need a THIRD CC in her kit? I mean, that was added onto it because its deafening bonus was rather … niche (and downright useless once enemies knows your presence). And, how could it be changed so Power Strength mattered for it too?

^{Why haven’t I responded to this yet? Herp derp.}
Ok. Let’s take this point-by-point.

Sonic Boom is good, but it’s not radial. In Warframe, you are almost always surrounded. Sonic Boom is therefore not sufficient.
Sound Quake is hot garbage, since it locks her in place and leaves her unable to act. Even if Banshee were able to act freely during Sound Quake, its CC is not as consistent as it probably should be… and making it consistent would be ridiculously OP to the level of Blind Mirage, most likely.
Silence is a hard CC with a decent duration on each instance that happens each time an enemy enters its radius. This gives Banshee a powerful tool for maintaining CC and having a fighting chance, while also not giving her the ability to mindlessly lock down entire tiles. Without this, she'd be utterly dependent on team support.

Why does it matter whether Power Strength matters for Silence? Banshee can run an augment that makes it matter. Is that not good enough? I didn’t see you suggesting that Radial Disarm require power strength to jam guns. I'd be fine with making sure every single power cares about every stat, but don’t hold some 'frames to that standard if you're not going to hold all of them to it.

Gee, I guess Banshee really gets my salt flowing…

[Cool3303]

51 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

Do you play Banshee? Because Sonar ain’t single target. The addition of Resonance in particular makes it likely that many enemies will end up with their torsos/heads marked. Having the torso or head marked will provide Sonar’s damage buff to AoE Abilities and weapons, respectively.

Sure but why would I want 15x unreliable damage if I can have 2x(or more) damage from Nova and slower/faster enemies, 100% of the time, all the time, guaranteed?

Not to mention having to worry about refreshing and energy cost while nova comes (relatively) cheap

1 hour ago, Cool3303 said:

Also she sucks at stealth since she isn't invisible, can't ignore lasers and also can't teleport.... (not to mention silence not working properly currently, that is already in the Op though)

51 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

Or maybe… you’re bad at stealth? I realize she doesn’t have utter cheese mechanics like invisibility, but two out of her 3 powers significantly contribute to stealth runs.

??? Silence literally does nothing currently...99% of all guns have a bigger noise range than Silence rendering it bloody useless...

Sonar increasing damage I guess? See I think we can agree to disagree here because every bloody tile on Rescue and Spy has a path which requires you to kill 0 enemies (yes even without stealth, you start unalerted too) As for Sabotage ... nope

1 hour ago, Cool3303 said:

Also the issue with enemies standing up being able to shoot but stagger immune really needs to be fixed ->hard ragdolling to a certain range?

51 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

Wat? Elucidate, please

Enemies have stagger imunity during basically any special animation. Thus soundwave does nothing and in some cases the stagger immunity is longer than necessary and they already start shooting at you.

1 hour ago, Cool3303 said:

• 50% Chance scaling with powerstrength: Enemies in range are deafened (and hold their ears for atleast 2 seconds scaling with duration)

51 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

The guaranteed hard CC on Silence is one of Banshee’s saving graces for anything in the range of Ceres or above. Removing that lifeline would be… unhelpful to say the least.

In case you did not know "deafening" refers to not hearing loud weapons and the current CC-> Enemies holding their Ears because their Eardrums got shattered

I will however agree that the numbers I threw around leave room for improvement (aswell as not mentioning either A or B apply)

-> I edited my post to clarify that

About the unalerted mechanic:

I should have elaborated, unalerted enemies act as blind for the number of seconds and after that, need to be alerted by either noticing you or being alerted by a nearby unit, which also could last a few more seconds.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Cool3303

[Gurpgork]

8 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

Sure but why would I want 15x unreliable damage if I can have 2x(or more) damage from Nova and slower/faster enemies, 100% of the time, all the time, guaranteed?

Because Sonar's damage amp is an order of magnitude better than Molecular Prime's. 

Plus Resonance + pretty much any shotgun makes hitting Sonar spots a breeze. Not to mention that Sonar can stack with both Molecular Prime and itself. 

Molecular Prime makes your damage go a little further. Sonar makes anything hurt. 

5 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

Not to mention having to worry about refreshing and energy cost while nova comes (relatively) cheap

...What? Sonar costs literally half as much energy as Molecular Prime, and it can spread to enemies unaffected by the initial cast with its augment. If anything, Nova is more expensive.