Immortal Builds Pt.2 - Ash/loki

[Gilaros]

Hello everyone, and welcome to the 2nd part of my "Immortal builds" series, I'm looking at the permastealth builds of Ash/Loki. You can also find the 1st part on Trinity here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/208105-immortal-builds-pt1-trinity/

 

Immortal builds:

In my book this refers to builds that are either through overwhelming offense or defense trivialize content. This means very little or no risk at all for a very high reward kind of gameplay. Currently the game has plenty of these builds, and I'd like to see them go cause they require no skill, offer no challenge, and creates terrible imbalance between frames/builds.

 

In the following I'll take a look at these builds which I've seen or tried and will offer a solution to them.

 

Ash/Loki:

 

Overview:

Unlike Trinity these frames are nowhere near broken, especially Ash who is quite a bit underwhelming in my opinion, however they both posses a powerful skill called stealth (with proper mods permastealth). Stealth makes you invisible to your enemies, which allows you to kill them from the shadows, with almost no chance to get hurt. As an added bonus you also get a stealth damage multiplier which increases the damage of your melee attacks by 400%. The issue is pretty simple: You can be invisible forever, meaning enemies can’t target you, therefore kill you and you also get a decent damage boost as well (this is even more prominent after U13). Builds based around permastealth are yet another example of no risk high reward style of gameplay.

 

Solution:

Redesign how stealth mechanic works. I think there are plenty ways to do this, so I’ll share a few ideas of mine.

1)      Add enemies who can detect stealth. Doing so will increase the risk of using stealth, and allows enemies to have a chance to fight back.

2)      Increase damage multiplier of first attack from stealth to 800-1000%, bonus applies to any weapon now, however first attack breaks stealth. This eliminates the playstyle where you can sit in stealth and kill everything, but also gives a decent damage boost on your first to attack to make up for the damage loss of the current mechanic.

3)      Add a cooldown to stealth mechanic, like you can’t go into stealth for 5 seconds after breaking it with an attack (you can still permastealth granted you don’t start fights).

 

I believe making all or just some of the ideas come true would make stealth a lot more interesting, with more tactical depth to it than it is now.

 

What are your thoughts about my idea? Do you have a different solution? Or maybe a different problem? Please do share, and thank you for reading it!

[EDeN153]

...

Loki LIVES off of invisibility, it's what makes him viable and dynamic as a frame, adding a cooldown and invisible-sensitive enemies would worsen the problem.

Edited April 15, 2014 by EDeN153

[CrownFire]

stahp

[Archistopheles]

Title says "Immortal Build"

 

Thread contains no build.

[-Upgreid-]

No. Just no. If the devs don't want these abilities to act like they do they would have revisited them long ago, these are some of the oldest frames around. On top of that you know how much Scott loves his nerfhammer (they even nerfed the Galatine of Buffing). Don't give him ideas. Sorry Scott :P

[Aka_Miso]

Devs already did cds and scraped it dont try to readd it, it wont work

Edited April 15, 2014 by Sasoka

[DeejayPwny]

No. Stealth is all about awareness. You need to notice enemy locations, and you need to notice your invis timer. Going invis doesn't immediately end aggro either. You can easily die while reapplying if you make a mistake. Loki and Ash are fine as is when it comes to invis. If anything, Ash needs a buff due to the fact that other than smokescreen his abilities are really bad.

[Gilaros]

...

Loki LIVES off of invisibility, it's what makes him viable and dynamic as a frame, adding a cooldown and invisible-sensitive enemies would worsen the problem.

Ash certainly has problems he needs a buff overall or even a complete redesign, but running around in stealth all the time, creates a no risk environment for him. If his other skills were buffed I believe he could be viable, however this is not about an Ash rework, but the stealth mechanic itself. Permastealth is way too rewarding for way too little risk. If it is otherwise please prove me wrong.

 

Title says "Immortal Build"

 

Thread contains no build.

Here is how you get the build I'm talking about: get all the + power duration mods, along with + power efficiency and voala there you have it.

 

No. Stealth is all about awareness. You need to notice enemy locations, and you need to notice your invis timer. Going invis doesn't immediately end aggro either. You can easily die while reapplying if you make a mistake. Loki and Ash are fine as is when it comes to invis. If anything, Ash needs a buff due to the fact that other than smokescreen his abilities are really bad.

Stealth is about awareness true, but not the current one. Tracking invis timer is incrediable easy, it becomes muscle memory pretty soon, so you know when it is time to find a safe place to reapply. It doesn't end aggro true, but again, you can just go to cover and wait there till it ends. It has very little downside to it, and a lot of advantage. If you play it right, you are immortal. And I agree Ash definitely needs a buff. 

[Archistopheles]

Here is how you get the build I'm talking about: get all the + power duration mods, along with + power efficiency and voala there you have it.

 

You're missing the point.

 

Take a look at your thread again. All of your ideas are drawn from other games. You're copying and pasting.

 

You're entitled to your opinion, but try to build around Warframe instead of having Warframe build around you.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Archistopheles

[WARLOCKE]

Both frames are fine. Needed infact if you plan to solo high end content. Ash brings nothing to a group so is a poor choice in frame selection, making warframes only Solo mode frame. Loki is a different beast as radial disarm is fantastic in certain modes and maps. But besides radial his contribution to group play is rather lacking if you dont exploit LoS with decoys.

 

Both frames are fine. Both are very strong solo choices and middle (loki) and pathetic (ash) group picks. And before you multi junkies jump in with your junkie mantra. Warframe is both a co-op and single player game. The devs do indeed balance for both modes (or try to). Doubt me? Go check the product placemnt page on steam or some other DLC provider.

 

So yea, strong frames for solo, group..not so much.

[fatpig84]

As a master race supporter.

I say no.

 

And I am not even a fan of invisibility lokis unless speed running content like Dark Sector conflicts or the old raid maps.

I almost always prefer disarm.

 

And honestly, those 2 don't bring as much to the table as trinity, who can do the same and benefit the entire team.

[Varzy]

While I can see your point I think you're overstating the power of invisibility and the melee Damage boost it brings.

I don't mind your suggestions though, except for attacks breaking invisibility. That's how Shade works, and if it were implemented to Loki and Ash it would make them near obsolete.

Enemies who detect stealth and a stealth cool down don't sound so bad, though. The former encourages players to kill those enemies first and the later means we'd have to decide between hiding or enduring the foes around us. 5 seconds might be too long, though.