Barely Used Warframes

[Skepsis]

The big issue is when progressing into the "Later Game" or rather, 45+ minutes in a defense mission, a lot of the frames fall off the grid due to efficiency.

 

Min/Maxing is a big part of the game unfortunately, along with tiers of weapons where one is better than the other, or one better than anything available.

 

I'd love to say personal preference is something that is viable, but it's really not if you're in to progress. If you're here to have fun, have at it.

[RealPandemonium]

You might not like it, but Blade Storm is weak sauce, primarily because it takes too long.  It needs to be faster, either due to having some clones/images helping to do the stabbing or due to hitting less targets (but for more damage, with high hp targets prioritized).

The whole idea of Blade Storm is that it relatively quickly executes tough enemies (but not instantly.)  If you have a maxed out weapon most likely you can just spray at enemies and bring them down quickly but if your weapon isn't that strong you can rely on Blade Storm to quickly do it for you.  You cannot consider the worth of an ability based on overpowered alternatives.  Things like MPrime and 4k damage Miasma should not exist in the first place, and things like Phage, Boltor Prime, Soma, Penta, etc are so powerful a toddler could take them into T3 content and wipe it.  If we compare Blade Storm to all the dumb things in this game  sure, it's useless, but what isn't? (Removing yourself from the map for multiple seconds still isn't useless but people would rather chain Rhino Stomps or Radial Blinds or Blessings so sigh.)

 

Edit: I run Intensify, Streamline, Max Fleeting Expertise, Rank 2 Blind Rage to get 57% power strength and 75% efficiency.  This gives me 3140 damage Blade Storms for 25 energy, which kills Grineer heavies into the mid 30s and leaves them at critical HP until the mid 40s.  Regular mobs are 1-shotted into the mid 40s.

Edited April 17, 2014 by RealPandemonium

[Axterix13]

The whole idea of Blade Storm is that it relatively quickly executes tough enemies (but not instantly.)  If you have a maxed out weapon most likely you can just spray at enemies and bring them down quickly but if your weapon isn't that strong you can rely on Blade Storm to quickly do it for you.  You cannot consider the worth of an ability based on overpowered alternatives.  Things like MPrime and 4k damage Miasma should not exist in the first place, and things like Phage, Boltor Prime, Soma, Penta, etc are so powerful a toddler could take them into T3 content and wipe it.  If we compare Blade Storm to all the dumb things in this game  sure, it's useless, but what isn't? (Removing yourself from the map for multiple seconds still isn't useless but people would rather chain Rhino Stomps or Radial Blinds or Blessings so sigh.)

 

Edit: I run Intensify, Streamline, Max Fleeting Expertise, Rank 2 Blind Rage to get 57% power strength and 75% efficiency.  This gives me 3140 damage Blade Storms for 25 energy, which kills Grineer heavies into the mid 30s and leaves them at critical HP until the mid 40s.  Regular mobs are 1-shotted into the mid 40s.

The thing is, in the time it takes you to do that, anyone else can just ultimate twice, and have eons of time left over to do other things.  And with 75% efficiency (which is way too high, but it is what it is), they'll easily recover the energy.  When I was leveling my Mag Prime, for example, I was responsible for killing most everything up until wave 30 in ODD (so mobs to the 50s) with constant Crush spam, and that's the weakest of the radial damage dealing ultimates.  Sure, it took me two to kill even the trash stuff, but that didn't matter, because I hit everything within a radius quickly rather than stabbing them one by one over a period of time.  Even without Natural Talent slotted, I killed more mobs, faster than any Ash could ever hope to do (without relying on weapons).  Now, admittedly, the ancients required some shooting by my teammates.  And against alloy armor and its 50% resists, Crush is pretty bad, and that's a large part of why Mags aren't played much.  But it goes to show that even a weak radial AoE can easily crush, if you'll pardon the pun, Blade Storm's damage dealing ability.

 

What it comes down to is that it isn't M-Prime that makes Blade Storm look bad.  Nor is it Miasma (because you don't exactly see a ton of Saryn's).  Blade Storm makes Blade Storm look bad.  It just takes too long.  It either needs to hit less targets, but prioritize the heavies (the high hp things),  or it needs to do what it does now, but in a lot less time.  Personally, I rather like the idea of it hitting less targets and prioritizing heavies... that I think would give it a unique and valuable function, especially against Grineer.

[RealPandemonium]

The thing is, in the time it takes you to do that, anyone else can just ultimate twice, and have eons of time left over to do other things.  And with 75% efficiency (which is way too high, but it is what it is), they'll easily recover the energy.  When I was leveling my Mag Prime, for example, I was responsible for killing most everything up until wave 30 in ODD (so mobs to the 50s) with constant Crush spam, and that's the weakest of the radial damage dealing ultimates.  Sure, it took me two to kill even the trash stuff, but that didn't matter, because I hit everything within a radius quickly rather than stabbing them one by one over a period of time.  Even without Natural Talent slotted, I killed more mobs, faster than any Ash could ever hope to do (without relying on weapons).  Now, admittedly, the ancients required some shooting by my teammates.  And against alloy armor and its 50% resists, Crush is pretty bad, and that's a large part of why Mags aren't played much.  But it goes to show that even a weak radial AoE can easily crush, if you'll pardon the pun, Blade Storm's damage dealing ability.

 

What it comes down to is that it isn't M-Prime that makes Blade Storm look bad.  Nor is it Miasma (because you don't exactly see a ton of Saryn's).  Blade Storm makes Blade Storm look bad.  It just takes too long.  It either needs to hit less targets, but prioritize the heavies (the high hp things),  or it needs to do what it does now, but in a lot less time.  Personally, I rather like the idea of it hitting less targets and prioritizing heavies... that I think would give it a unique and valuable function, especially against Grineer.

The solution to this is two-fold, IMO.  One is that radial nuke abilities should be abolished or have drawbacks similar to Sound Quake.  The other is to make Blade Storm prioritize heavies as you suggest.  I wonder if the community would be OK with keeping the current theatrical animations for heavy units but summarily slaughtering the weak units with a quicker less emphasized animation to speed up the move overall.  It could also do more damage when it hits fewer units or inherit the melee combo multiplier.  

[Axterix13]

The solution to this is two-fold, IMO.  One is that radial nuke abilities should be abolished or have drawbacks similar to Sound Quake.  The other is to make Blade Storm prioritize heavies as you suggest.  I wonder if the community would be OK with keeping the current theatrical animations for heavy units but summarily slaughtering the weak units with a quicker less emphasized animation to speed up the move overall.  It could also do more damage when it hits fewer units or inherit the melee combo multiplier.  

I don't think the Radial Nukes are bad, per se.  The ability to spam them though is.  Again, it comes down to 75% efficiency, as well as the cost structure.  The 25/50/75/100 that is mostly used is just bad when the power gap between 1 and 4 is huge.  And when you can drop that 100 to 25, coupled with how plentiful 25 energy orbs are, well, ultimate spam will happen.  But something you can spam should never see the term "Ultimate" applied to it.  I'd love to see Efficiency reverted to its previous functionality, with Streamline bumped to be 42% (or 40%) at max rank, to see Warframe energy capacity doubled or tripled, and then costs restructured to something like 10-15 for your standard #1 and 200 for the ultimates, with others individually priced in between.  If you could use your #1 13-20x for each use of your ultimate, you'd be a lot more likely to use it.  And if your ultimate took at least 4 energy orbs, you'd be a lot more inclined to save it for a situation that calls for it.

 

As to Blade Storm, no doubt some people would complain.  Some always do.  But if the power were more effective, they'd be fine with it, I think.  Though again, I'm more in favor of it hitting less targets harder, with a prioritization of heavy units, as that gives Ash something unique and useful, something to help him stand out, Ash, the Heavy Killer, but at the cost that he isn't as good against trash units.

Edited April 17, 2014 by Axterix13

[Psisah]

As a long time Banshee player, I rarely see other Banshees.  I can't honestly remember the last time I saw another Banshee on a planet or ODD/ODS/T1-3.  I love playing her though, Support/CC monster.

[TrashSpider]

Banshee's are really rare, just like when Volt/Mag wasn't used that much before the great buff. 

[Wolfstorm18]

I see them often.  The Tornado thing is getting on my nerves, it takes all of the loot and deposits it on the ceiling. 

 

 

The Hydroid tentacles is worse. Its just irritating. 

 

I was playing as sniper support today and there were two Hydroids spamming that thing. It was a mess, I was not able to aim at enemies, because there were too much tentacles. 

 

Those tentacles were to be used by some infested enemy, but here we are, one more time the Tenno are overpowered over their enemies. 

 

Because of those tentacles I'm now building a Nova warframe. I will spam Molecular Prime everytime I see Hydroids. 

[RealPandemonium]

I see them often.  The Tornado thing is getting on my nerves, it takes all of the loot and deposits it on the ceiling. 

This is fixed as of the current patch.