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

[--Q--uaint]

For Sonar, see Gurpgork's post. @Gurpgork, thanks for responding.

15 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

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

I feel like I've made good use of it before, but maybe I'm misremembering. I certainly was running a high-range build.

16 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

Sonar increasing damage I guess?

Sonar tells you where your enemies are, and as of recently, which way they're facing. Knowledge is power. Sure, you can bring Enemy Radar or whatever, but usually I run Energy Siphon because I like using abilities.

17 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

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.

This is less a problem with Banshee and more a problem with Warframe in general. Most hard CC powers (and CC status procs) suffer from this issue.

21 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

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.

Hmm. That's interesting. I dunno that I'd want to add the ability for Banshee to do that... and then punish people for building for Sonar by not letting them use it. Also, forcing enemies to be unalerted seems like something Nyx should be doing, not Banshee. (:O hey, a use for Psychic Bolts?!)

[Cool3303]

28 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?

15 minutes ago, Gurpgork said:

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

Damage which I am never going to be effectively able to use might just not exist at all.

The point is, with that MP you are firing 2k+ dealing Boltor shells shredding troopers all day every day, this ofcourse if you do not aim for the head.

With Banshee you can play around with shotguns and hope that 2 or 3 of the 30 pellets hit....

 

This is of course not accounting for not being able to use headshots 80% of the time if you want to aim for those weakspots (2x or 4x damage for crits gone)

See I agree that it is "viable" with resonance, but it is barely so, a Nova simply does it better

15 minutes ago, Gurpgork said:

.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.

But every new cast takes in account your current duration. I wouldn't ever let it run below 20 seconds making me cast twice as often as Nova

Not to mention Banshee also needs to maintain silence which basically substitutes the MP slow

 

Oh and since Nova only needs Duration and Strength while Banshee also needs range on top of that... you get the gist of it

Edited April 6, 2016 by Cool3303

[--Q--uaint]

6 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

Damage which I am never going to be effectively able to use might just not exist at all.

A wise man once said "Git gud."

7 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

The point is, with that MP you are firing 2k+ dealing Boltor shells shredding troopers all day every day

In the level ranges that you need damage buffs, the Boltor Prime is basically irrelevant anyway. Unless, of course, you have Sonar. Then you could wreck face with a Lato.

8 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

This is of course not accounting for not being able to use headshots 80% of the time if you want to aim for those weakspots (2x or 4x damage for crits gone)

This is a fair criticism, but utterly irrelevant due to how strong Banshee's bonus is.

9 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

See I agree that it is "viable" with resonance, but it is barely so, a Nova simply does it better

....lol

Spoiler

 

12 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

But every new cast takes in account your current duration. I wouldn't ever let it run below 20 seconds making me cast twice as often as Nova

Not to mention Banshee also needs to maintain silence which basically substitutes the MP slow

 

Oh and since Nova only needs Duration and Strength while Banshee also needs range on top of that... you get the gist of it

Fair criticisms, but the effects are far stronger on Banshee's end than Nova's.

[Gurpgork]

37 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

With Banshee you can play around with shotguns and hope that 2 or 3 of the 30 pellets hit....

We're talking about shotguns here. If you point your cursor in the general direction of a Sonar spot, hitting one is practically an inevitability. And since Sonar's damage amp is absolutely preposterous, 2 or 3 pellets is more than enough. That's pretty much the point of using a shotgun on Banshee: all but taking away the aiming element. 

Heck, if you have Punch Through and fire into a crowd, you're going to hit several Sonar spots, and if you're running Resonance (which you should be), the next shot will be even easier to aim because there will be twice as many Sonar spots. 

[--Q--uaint]

4 minutes ago, Gurpgork said:

Hek

FTFY ^{_{I'm getting stupider by the second pls halp}}

5 minutes ago, Gurpgork said:

if you have Punch Through and fire into a crowd, you're going to hit several Sonar spots, and if you're running Resonance (which you should be), the next shot will be even easier to aim because there will be twice as many Sonar spots. 

With punchthrough and crowds, Banshee almost doesn't require skill beyond staying alive.

[Azamagon]

21 hours ago, ChronoEclipse said:

1) 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

2) 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.)

1) The fact that we are (well, mostly) trying to discuss balance here, Sonar stacking is a rather ridiculously strong niche. Too strong I might say (as you say, 2 million damage on a BULLETJUMP, yeesh). So, no longer having Sonarstacking, at the upside of no longer recasting it when meeting new enemies is a give and take thing. Besides, stacking Sonar is not even really needed, considering the amplification it brings even at a base value.

2) With the potential removal of Silence and its autostun (or rather, merging Silence with Sonar, but losing the autostun), I think Sound Quake would be fine to have as her radial CC tool.

Regardless wether my ideas are good or bad, just hypothetically, IF Sonar and Silence got merged as per my suggestion, what would YOU suggest as a replacement ability in Silence's slot?

2 hours ago, ChronoEclipse said:

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…

Ah, I said that as a preface for my idea of merging Silence and Sonar together as an aura, thus serving the purpose of indirectly giving it a Power Strength use (the Sonar amp).

And for Radial Disarm, consider that I gave it a duration, remember? Well, I've also always like the idea that this ability also caused an inverse "thorns" effect on enemies struck by RD (and this effect would work even on non-disarmable enemies), causing enemies to feel X% of their damage dealt back at themselves (Decoy and Radiation-proc synergy, and Radiation being something that I just happened to suggest for Switch Teleport :P). And, Power Strength could affect that "thorn"-effect's potency.
(For further reference, I'm ALWAYS thinking of how all power attributes could be changed so they are affected by each and every power attribute. I'm really not trying to be biased in that regard. I had a huge Warframe rebalancing thread too, similar to this one, which got locked since I bumped it too often :/ There I tried to fix that power attribute issue... I'm rambling now xD)

As for this part:

"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. "

As modding is right now, I agreed. But there is a clear problem with augments. And that is: What ARE they supposed to be?

Are they supposed to be considered as powerful buffs? That makes sense considering the current modding situation
Or are they supposed to be situational / sidegrading? That does NOT make sense right now, due to the restricted modding slots and such

If one looks at the augments as they are right now, the augment design philosophy seems to be a total mess.
Some augments are too good not to install, while some augments are so tiny in their benefit you barely notice, some are sidegrades to the ability, and some are even downright DETRIMENTAL (Titanic Rumbler comes to mind). There is just no clear direction what they are supposed to be!

If the design is supposed to be less about giving abilities powerful buffs, and more situational skill-altering (you know, as per their very name, AUGMENTS), they COULD be worth installing if they had their own augment modding section, and if we had multiple choices of augments per ability (something akin to, what is it called, runes? in Diablo 3). But if they are supposed to compete with regular mods? Yeah, then they should be upgrades

Edited April 7, 2016 by Azamagon

[taiiat]

Sonar, and everything that it does, is very much indeed what's unique about Banshee. it's troublesome enough to stack Sonar Dots that it's not practical - but still amusing when it happens nonetheless.

which is an important part of that - even getting two Sonar Dots on top of each other on the same Enemy takes quite a lot of work/luck, let alone on the group of 30 behind it. yes, even accounting for Resonance.

[--Q--uaint]

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

2 million damage on a BULLETJUMP,

billion

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

Sonar stacking is a rather ridiculously strong niche

I can’t disagree.

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

Too strong I might say

I wouldn’t. The rest of her kit is lackluster, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. She'd be overpowered if you didn’t have to be so good at staying alive to actually use her.

The polarizing nature of Banshee’s power is one of her core traits at this point, IMO.

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

I think Sound Quake would be fine to have as her radial CC tool.

I think Sound Quake would be difficult to put in a place that’s neither OP nor UP.

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

IF Sonar and Silence got merged as per my suggestion, what would YOU suggest as a replacement ability in Silence’s slot?

An ability similar to the one I suggested earlier to replace Sound Quake with. A targeted small AoE with efficiency comboing, guaranteed synergy with Sonar, and bonus damage for hitting an enemy who’s still in its CC aftershocks. This is assuming, obviously, that Sound Quake actually is worth using for CC in solo.

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

For further reference, I'm ALWAYS thinking of how all power attributes could be changed so they are affected by each and every power attribute. I'm really not trying to be biased in that regard. I had a huge Warframe rebalancing thread too, similar to this one, which got locked since I bumped it too often :/ There I tried to fix that power attribute issue… I'm rambling now xD

That’s fair… but I'd rather not go there in this thread. Unless @Archwizard wants to make that part of this thread, too?

[tnccs215]

 

Hey @Cool3303. Self Entitled Equinox expert here. Gonna prove why your fixes aren't great.

19 hours ago, Cool3303 said:

Now for the ongoing discussions

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

Agreed. However, your fixes don't adress anything of the sort, as we are going to see ahead.

 

19 hours ago, Cool3303 said:

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.

The thing is, Night Form's healing is hardly sustained. It isn't now (now it is simply ineffective), and the changes we are choosing distanciate her even more from that. Besides that, the fact that small, sustained healing abilities are irrelevant is something that needs to change, and while this thread doesn't address that problem in profundity or directly, it is something that many of us have discussed, be it here, be it on other threads.

19 hours ago, Cool3303 said:

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?).

Yes, no doubt. I've even addressed this on my previous post-- ence my desire to include a stun on Mend-- however Peaceful Provocation compensated for this (although on a way that needs urgently to be perfected), and Night Form's function go way beyond CC and Healing.

19 hours ago, Cool3303 said:

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.

This is where the problems with your ideas heavily start. You admit that form changing is cumbersome-- as it effectively is-- but you take that as an unchangeable matter of fact instead of a problem to be solved. The way she is played currently (because it is the only way to play her) is a problem, because her potential is effectively halved. If you consider the idea that the way she's played needs to be changed is wrong, than you yourself aren't grasping the full extent of her problems or her potential if they didn't existed. At all.

19 hours ago, Cool3303 said:

• 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)

So that she becomes even more of a Rest spammer? She's already enough of that. No thank you. I'd rather go with a buff to her other abilities than this. Personally, I think Rest is already on a good place-- maybe even needing a slight nerf. As I said before, it was meant as a way to take care of key individuals, not of entire hords. The buff to its range was nothing more than a lazy bandaid buff to Night Form (seriously DE, I appreciate your hard work, but you could have tried a little harder on this). 

19 hours ago, Cool3303 said:

 

• 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

See, I could get behind this. Your objective is an obvious nerf to Maim's incredible power (I can hear all the Equinoxes getting thrown to the basement by everyone that doesn't main her, if this was a thing), and I don't completely dislike that. However, this also means you would have to go with 250% strength to get to the same values you already do, and since that obligatorily means overextended out of the build, your range would also be reduced to around 160%, tops. Which is already problematic. Not to mention efficiency issues. What you consider a nerf would actually be double, maybe triple. Sorry, but reduction to 30% is too arsh. would rather have it 50% and cap it at 100% (or maybe even 75%). This if the change is even applied. Thing is, when the rest of your whole kit (Night Form included) doesn't suck, than people won't throw it all off just for Maim. Unless they want to die when enemy armor gets too hard. So I throw this to the "maybe, if tweaked" pile.

19 hours ago, Cool3303 said:

• 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

Mh...I actually don't hate this idea. Though, Rage itself needs some tweaking, since the ability is either unnecessary (because you kill the enemy with a sneeze), or too dangerous (because they kill you with one). I proposed on my thread for the speed increase no to scale with power strength, or at least to scale differently, plus making Rage stackable. I don't think it was an enormously popular idea. 

Also, its casting cost would have to be increased to 50, at least.

Now, the problem with adding this to Rest is the same problem with increasing Rest's base range. This would be compensated in part with a reduced duration (reduced by at least half), but even then... I sense it would be just another Radial Blind without LoS. It could be slightly fair, since most Equinox builds that aren't Maim/Rest focused have negative duration... But I doubt anyone will be as caring as not to spam it recklessly. 

Honestly, I could see this as a substitute to the stun on Mend. But while Mend wouldn't allow spamming for a number of reasons, this allows. 

Ugh, sometimes I wish cooldowns were a thing.

[EDIT]: Add an idea: Maybe I could get on the Rest waggon if this AoE centered on self wasn't recastable. Maybe.

19 hours ago, Cool3303 said:

• Duplicate gets more than bloody 7 seconds duration

No negative criticism on this. It's effectiveness is already reduced by being AI controlled (hell, that 300% damage bonus basically transcripts to 50% DPS), that 7 seconds are basically saying "yep, this is just for when you want to fool around". Gets us 20 seconds. At least.

Edited April 7, 2016 by tnccs215

[blaes]

20 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

No negative criticism on this. It's effectiveness is already reduced by being AI controlled (hell, that 300% damage bonus basically transcripts to 50% DPS), that 7 seconds are basically saying "yep, this is just for when you want to fool around". Gets us 20 seconds. At least.

Things like fireball frenzy, smite infusion, venom dose get 40s duration, and directly boost (other) players/companions damage. I don't think a similar duration for AI-controlled bots would be OP.

[tnccs215]

18 hours ago, ChronoEclipse said:

Excal’s 2.5 drain is reduced to 0, and Mesa’s 15 drain is reduced to 11.

WHAT.

[--Q--uaint]

2 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

WHAT.

With Rage and Lifestrike, he’s got infinite use of it anyway. I would say his drain should be increased, but that would negatively impact new players by a lot :c

Perhaps the energy influx could only remove up to half of the drain? It wouldn’t change the effect on Mesa at all, but Excal would still be stuck with 1.25. *shrug* I'm just spitballing here, man.

[tnccs215]

6 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

With Rage and Lifestrike, he’s got infinite use of it anyway. I would say his drain should be increased, but that would negatively impact new players by a lot :c

Perhaps the energy influx could only remove up to half of the drain? It wouldn’t change the effect on Mesa at all, but Excal would still be stuck with 1.25. *shrug* I'm just spitballing here, man.

I'd rather simply have its drain increased, and Mesa's drain decreased, and having energy regeneration completely shut down during channeled abilites. Cleaner, more efficicent, better.

And the thing with Excal is... I don't think a starter frame should be able to carry you all the way like Excalibur does. I think it's drain should be increased, or the power nerfed. energy waves being reserved for special moves on combos, or to charge attacks. Though I gotta run now, an angry mob of excal users armed with torches and pitchforks is coming after me.

[EDIT]: talking has someone that created a new account a while ago, I can assure you new players wont be affected too negatively. Power use is practically nonexistent on earlier levels due to the absence of energy orbs-- new players don't do infinite missions after all-- and since we are already giving them natural energy regeneration, I honestly think they would use it and abuse it even more if we don't increase its cost.

Edited April 7, 2016 by tnccs215

[--Q--uaint]

3 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

I'd rather simply have its drain increased, and Mesa’s drain decreased, and having energy regeneration completely shut down during channeled abilites. Cleaner, more efficicent, better.

Yes, but having no alternative to energy orbs in our new system means a lot of forced downtime. I like the idea of energy regen actually benefiting 'frames who use a lot of channeled abilities. Loki should NOT (IMO, ofc. And this from someone who’s definitely in the “Loki Masterrace” camp.) be unarguably superior for stealth to Ivara because Ivara has to spend half of her time waiting for energy to regen so she can do some more Prowl-ing.

5 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

And the thing with Excal is… I don’t think a starter frame should be able to carry you all the way like Excalibur does.

Just because Excal is a starter 'frame does not mean he should be inferior.

8 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

I think it’s drain should be increased, or the power nerfed.

Entirely fair.

8 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

energy waves being reserved for special moves on combos, or to charge attacks.

My thought is that only channeled strikes should have waves, and should charge extra for the privilege. 

[Cool3303]

More on equinox:

Spoiler

@tnccs215#Title 

3 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

 

Hey @Cool3303. Self Entitled Equinox expert here. Gonna prove why your fixes aren't great.[...]

This is where the problems with your ideas heavily start [...]

So that she becomes even more of a Rest spammer? [...]

See, I could get behind this [...]

Mh...I actually don't hate this idea [...]

No negative criticism on this.

Just kidding XD

Just found it funny that you had only 30% of my ideas to criticizise (and 20% were the thesis in itself not the execution)

I think you also forgot my mention of a held trigger for the extended range rest (give that 2-3 secs chargeup for full range (20m) scaling with duration and it would be dandy so with 200% duration you would stun for 10 secs or so but chargeup for 4 secs too )

This is still on the acceptable side of cc (compared to Bastille (since Mirage is broken) while maintaining snap shots and being super usefull for rezzing someone (where you can usually spare the 2-3 secs)

Not to mention it could work as cheap stagger for a no duration, aurastrength build since it would chargeup in 1 sec or so

On the topic of my thesis that Equinox works and "cannot" be fixed:

What I was, maybe poorly expressing with saying "sustained heal is irrelevant:

While staying in Nightform you can heal every 4-5 seconds (or less), you can also CC (to revive,mostly)

If you are however maintaining Dayform you can put up your heal in only 2 more seconds (tops), swithching back takes 2 secs too ->Dayform has inherently better Offensive capabilities

So you need 10 secs to put up a heal. This makes staying in Dayform the logical thing to do, should your team need a heal in more than 20-30 seconds (highly likely)

Now to the gist of why switching often is illogical:

Equinox has a mainly CC/Support Nightform and a Dayform for Damage and Buffs.

Simply put you need CC/Support if your DPS is in too much trouble and moar DPS if you are doing fine without any more of the aforementioned.^{Ihopewedonthavetodiscussthat}

The notion that a entire!!! team switches from ->not needing CC or Heal to -> Blessing & Disarm NAOW!!! every 20-30 seconds is extremely stupid and by consequence the notion that a Equinox should _wantwant^want to switch for exactly that is  stupid

Her "cardinal sin" is that she is built for two completely polar states of the game, by consequence making switching every few secs illogical^{Quod erat demonstrandum}

But what if switching where easier:

You would need even less time to get rid of Nightform....

But both can be equal right?

Sure but only if rest/pacify is worth a damn or mend stuns_{for ever}

Simply put the advantages of CC would need to outperform the value of Killing enemies... thats why rest needs more rang IMO

Pacifiy needs fixing badly so telling how it could blend in better is tricky which only leaves rest and mend...

And nothing gets people more pissed than enemies being stuck in spawns (which is why I dont want mendstun)

 

As for energy drain on channeled Abilities: I think 7.5 is a happy inbetween with current energyorbs

Without energyorbs channeled abilities would need a rework.

 

As for Exalted Blade itself: Reduce the obscene autoblocking by a bit and it's all dandy.

Maybe blocking mods could interact with it to patch that hole, of course requiring Excal to sacrifice slots ;)

 

Edited April 7, 2016 by Cool3303

[--Q--uaint]

38 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

I think 7.5 is a happy inbetween

I think, in general, that abilities that drain less than that should be buffed and have their drain increased… and abilities that drain more should probably just have their drain decreased.

37 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

Without energyorbs channeled abilities would need a rework.

Thank you.

41 minutes ago, Cool3303 said:

As for Exalted Blade itself: Reduce the obscene autoblocking by a bit and it’s all dandy.

So lower the block percentage, or make him unable to autoblock all the time? Or something else entirely?

[taiiat]

3 hours ago, ChronoEclipse said:

I think, in general, that abilities that drain less than that should be buffed and have their drain increased… and abilities that drain more should probably just have their drain decreased.

perhaps hopefully with World on Fire being an exception, as having basically no Energy Cost is a good thing thematically (and functionally - remember when you cast it there's a Damage Pulse, if you want it you need to cast again).

but like i've said... somewhere, being basically free to have on is what i had in mind for World on Fire, to be like a functional Cosmetic - but i also said to like, divide the Damage by 10, and have Accelerant give World on Fire a larger Damage Bonus. so that you have a Cosmetic, and if you cast Accelerant, a Weapon.

 

come to think of it though, since it's been a while since i've said that, some other things are interesting in vein of that perhaps.
such as:
Enemies under Fire Status take +50% Damage from World on Fire.
Enemies that have been tagged by Fireball take +50% Damage from World on Fire (separate from the Fire Status it usually applies).
Enemies in the 'Fire Donut' from Fire Blast take +50% Damage from World on Fire.

and if you put that on top of Accelerant's Fire Damage Bonus (and giving Accelerant an extra 4.5x Multiplier just for World on Fire - you'd have something interesting, i think.
which should calculate as:
400 / 10 == 40
2.5+4.5 == 7

(40 * 7) * 2.5 == 700
so you can hit 700 without any Mods, if you combine your Abilities.
+75% Power Strength would result in... ~2144.
+75% Power Strength with Accelerant only... ~1378.
or without Mods and only the 4.5x Multiplier and 2.5x Accelerant Multiplier... 450.

 

that would address one problem. the Fire Donut still being mostly pointless is a different matter (it should have the 100% Fire Status instead of the expanding bubble) though.
and Fireball & Fire Blast could use some interesting relation to each other.

[--Q--uaint]

43 minutes ago, taiiat said:

perhaps hopefully with World on Fire being an exception, as having basically no Energy Cost is a good thing thematically (and functionally - remember when you cast it there's a Damage Pulse, if you want it you need to cast again).

I actually really dislike World on Fire as an ability. It's basically Peacemaker but with fire, no movement restriction, and no LoS restriction. The lower damage output is more than made up for by those other factors.

As far as I've seen, the ability is basically just an enabler for lazy gameplay and nothing else.

[taiiat]

7 hours ago, ChronoEclipse said:

As far as I've seen, the ability is basically just an enabler for lazy gameplay and nothing else.

because now you can have it on forever, but it retains the same Damage values that it's had ever since the beginning, in which you could not (and could only have it active for like 15 secs tops actually).

mechanics of it have changed a lot, but it's Damage hasn't changed in context of those much different mechanics. that's no good.
if the Damage was poo unless you were actively playing, then it wouldn't be able to be an enabler. because it would successfully achieve 'functional Cosmetic but becomes useful if you use other Abilities too'.

[tnccs215]

12 hours ago, Cool3303 said:

More on equinox:

@tnccs215#Title

Just kidding XD

Just found it funny that you had only 30% of my ideas to criticizise (and 20% were the thesis in itself not the execution)

I criticized what is there. If you want, I can criticize for everything that lacks. I didn't furthered my criticism because you said your alterations were "additions to what's already on the OP". However, based on your thesis, those things might have well be none. The thing is, in the moment you criticize the thesis, the idea, everything made based on it crumbles to the ground. The midst that can be done is to salvage the scrap and use it based on another thesis--like I did-- but in the moment the base idea is refuted, there is no point in continuing to kick the corpse.

12 hours ago, Cool3303 said:

I think you also forgot my mention of a held trigger for the extended range rest (give that 2-3 secs chargeup for full range (20m) scaling with duration and it would be dandy so with 200% duration you would stun for 10 secs or so but chargeup for 4 secs too )

Yes, I forgot. Apologies on that. Regardless, I'm writing this on my phone and its natural lack of processing power coupled with a not-so-nice editing means I will address things I find more important or convenient, so I'll either add a note on this later, or not at all. Nevertheless, I'd rather have it unrecasteable.

12 hours ago, Cool3303 said:

This is still on the acceptable side of cc (compared to Bastille (since Mirage is broken) while maintaining snap shots and being super usefull for rezzing someone (where you can usually spare the 2-3 secs)

Not to mention it could work as cheap stagger for a no duration, aurastrength build since it would chargeup in 1 sec or so.

You see, Bastille is only on the acceptable side of CC (and it is barely there) because it has a set amount of maximum holdable targets scaling with power strength-- which counter balances overextended builds (and this "acceptability" ceases in the moment you throw a second Bastille. And a third. And a fourth. And a fifth. But for your sake, I'm going to ignore this). Rest doesn't. As I said before, it would be closer to a No-LoS Radial Blind than that. And Radial Blind is only hold down by that "little" detail. So no, I dont think it is on the acceptable side of CC.

12 hours ago, Cool3303 said:

What I was, maybe poorly expressing with saying "sustained heal is irrelevant:

While staying in Nightform you can heal every 4-5 seconds (or less), you can also CC (to revive,mostly)

If you are however maintaining Dayform you can put up your heal in only 2 more seconds (tops), swithching back takes 2 secs too ->Dayform has inherently better Offensive capabilities

So you need 10 secs to put up a heal. This makes staying in Dayform the logical thing to do, should your team need a heal in more than 20-30 seconds (highly likely)

Now to the gist of why switching often is illogical:

Equinox has a mainly CC/Support Nightform and a Dayform for Damage and Buffs.

Simply put you need CC/Support if your DPS is in too much trouble and moar DPS if you are doing fine without any more of the aforementioned.

The notion that a entire!!! team switches from ->not needing CC or Heal to -> Blessing & Disarm NAOW!!! every 20-30 seconds is extremely stupid and by consequence the notion that a Equinox should wantwantwant to switch for exactly that is  stupid

Her "cardinal sin" is that she is built for two completely polar states of the game, by consequence making switching every few secs illogicalQuod erat demonstrandum

But what if switching where easier:

You would need even less time to get rid of Nightform....

But both can be equal right?

Sure but only if rest/pacify is worth a damn or mend stunsfor ever

Simply put the advantages of CC would need to outperform the value of Killing enemies... thats why rest needs more rang IMO

Pacifiy needs fixing badly so telling how it could blend in better is tricky which only leaves rest and mend...

And nothing gets people more pissed than enemies being stuck in spawns (which is why I dont want mendstun)

 

Ok, there are a lot of things wrong with this thesis. Between the forced generalizations and hidden premises, you also have things that are purely and simply wrong (Not to mention a poor localization of ideas (premises after conclusions) and so forth, which I honestly wont bash that much because I too have a terribly organized mind).

Hell, Im going to take a long time debunking this. Ugh, I got an exam today, so I cant do it right bow, But what I can say now is:

There is nothing wrong in being made for opposite roles. What there is, is to be expected to do them almost simultaneously, but being mechanically prevented from that (deactivation on metamorphosis being the main problem). Your assertion results in the idea that only specialized frames are worth anything. Since Jack-of-all trades can be factually effective, this is wrong a posteriori.

You are being narrow minded, confusing what she isand what you think se is with what she is meant to be. In this case, Night form being CC/Support oriented and Day form being offensive. You take this things as opposites. In fact they are not:

Support is not opposite to offense. Support is parallel. The opposite of offense is defense, and the opposite of support is selfish gameplay. The fact that provoke-- a supportive ability-- exists, and isn't contradictory with offense should be proof enough of this. You see, while Night form is (or should be) defensive and Day form offensive, Equinox in general is supportive. Plus, CC is a means to an end, not an end on itself. It is also, as I said, a band aid, cheap fix.

Your fixes are the pure definition of a band aid fix: A solution that compensates for a problem, without addressing it.

Ugh, I have so much to say about this. Do wait for it.

[Archwizard]

So, something I've been considering, about Trinity's Blessing:

In terms of design philosophy, I think we've been going about things wrong. Normally, mitigation is intended to be a proactive effect (hence why I wanted Oberon to have stronger snap-defense skills), while healing is intended to be a reactive effect. Someone like Oberon should work because in spite of providing weaker healing effects than other healers, he should get more mileage out of it through mitigation. His primary flaw, on all fronts, is execution of this model; his mitigation is not potent enough to overcome the weaknesses of his healing, so he cannot sustain his allies for any meaningful length of time.
Meanwhile, Trinity flips this model on its head. Her problem is that she gains the strongest proactive effect in the game as a reward for being a reactive player - which encourages players to induce scenarios upon which to react before they can run out into the fray. Further, Well of Life creates a reactive defense tool that must be used proactively, increasing the skill required to use it and ultimately causing players to defer to Blessing.

I'm wondering if perhaps... on some level... the solution to both Trinity and Oberon's problems, is to trade? To weaken her mitigation overall and increase his? To have her kit open its own scenarios to react upon, and reduce the number of reactive effects in his?

What if the ultimate I have written for Oberon in the OP... was Trinity's instead?

[Archwizard]

_{^{Accidental double-post, may as well make a use of it.}}

Some things I'm considering right now:

- Hallowed Ground no longer provides players who stand within it with armor. Instead, damage taken by players standing on Hallowed Ground will now contribute to the damage dealt by Hallowed Ground, while enemies are staggered upon stepping onto Hallowed Ground.
- Reckoning replaced with "Guardian Oath" (concepts follow):

Spoiler

Oberon buffs the entire party, adding a damage threshold to all attacks received, affected by Power Strength. Damage below this threshold will be negated and reflected, while damage above this threshold will be reduced.
--> Unique effectiveness, outright overpowered on enemies with burst-fire weapons but still leaves room for Oberon to protect from heavier hits. Synergy will probably require reworking Smite again.

OR

Oberon buffs the entire party. Damage taken by allies with this buff will instead be transferred to Oberon. Oberon's armor will increase based on damage taken at a rate affected by Power Strength.
--> Seems a bit repetitive of Absorb in some ways and Vex Armor in others. However, it would offer interesting synergy with Hallowed Ground above.

EDIT: Actually now that I consider it, the top iteration would work if it had a taunt affected by Range...

- Blessing reworked: No longer heals or provides mitigation. Trinity casts a buff on the party (regardless of distance), and momentarily stuns enemies near each affected ally on application (affected by Range). Enemies who attack players with the buff will be temporarily stunned. Buff and stun both affected by Duration.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Archwizard

[iQuan]

I would like to see Mesa's Peacemaker be affected by secondary mods! Additionally, it would be great if Peacemaker would also have prioritized targets such as ancients so that she can be viable in the void!

[--Q--uaint]

2 hours ago, Archwizard said:

What if the ultimate I have written for Oberon in the OP… was Trinity’s instead?

So much salt would be created. Oceans of salt. Delicious oceans of salt.

Perhaps instead of CC/damage, Blessing would fullheal instantly and make all damage taken by teammates with the buff produce a healing pulse with 18m range equal to 75% of the health lost, in addition to granting allies a Quick Thinking effect that scales its “efficiency” with Power Strength.
That seems like a suitable replacement for damage reduction, and doesn’t mess with Vex Armor or whatever else.

 

Speaking of Oberon, I have some thoughts:

Renewal
Add a new buffing mechanic to augment its healing. All health damage the squad takes is granted as an additive armor bonus for all allies that lasts until the end of Renewal. All additive bonus armor stacks multiplicatively with Hallowed Ground’s bonus.

Reckoning
Since Oberon now has a mitigation tool, we can bring back the idea of a mass CC/damage power. I don’t remember where I saw the idea of making Reckoning actually judge the enemies, but I like it… so here’s an adaptation of it.

Oberon raises enemies into the air, dealing the full Radiation portion of the damage on Reckoning when they reach maximum height. This is the Judgment phase of the ability. If more than 50% of the affected enemies die, the enemies are deemed Unworthy; else, they are deemed Worthy.

If the enemies are deemed Unworthy, Oberon releases a healing pulse (overhealing going into shields/overshields) based on the damage dealt and smashes the remaining enemies into the ground dealing Impact (or Puncture *shrug*) damage.
All enemies killed by the ability are guaranteed to drop ammunition.
Allies affected by the healing pulse gain a movement speed buff.

If the enemies are deemed Worthy, Oberon leaves the enemies in the air for 8 seconds.
Allies within range of Reckoning receive 75% damage reduction (capped at 95%) for 8 seconds.
The affected targets are procced with Radiation for the duration of the hold and will blind any enemy within 14 meters. Targets have life-granting like WoL-targets, and 7% of overhealing becomes an additive armor bonus that lasts for 10 seconds and refreshes on dealing damage to a Worthy Reckoning victim.
At the end of the holding period, the targets are ragdolled away from Reckoning’s cast point and produce a Heavy Impact proc upon landing.

Oberon now has the ability to buff and heal his team if acting as a nuker, and give his team stacking refreshable armor bonuses for high level content. Adding this to a reworked and more usable Hallowed Ground, and he becomes a life-support master with a bit of management/skill/coordination.

Edited April 12, 2016 by ChronoEclipse
fooooormatting!

[Archwizard]

2 minutes ago, iQuan said:

I would like to see Mesa's Peacemaker be affected by secondary mods! 

Don't worry, she will.

2 minutes ago, iQuan said:

Additionally, it would be great if Peacemaker would also have prioritized targets such as ancients so that she can be viable in the void!

I believe that's what the narrowing cone of effect it presently has is for.