Ash Is Useless

[Stefanovich]

Ash is useless. Loki overshadows him in every way. Ever since January of 2013, topics have popped up pointing out the blatant gap of effectiveness between Ash and Loki, and it is still like this in April of 2014.

 

~Shuriken - Abysmal damage, all slash, with sometimes unreliable targeting and absolutely ZERO utility. But it can be thrown while reloading, oh gee thanks.

~Decoy - Distracts the enemy, lets you revive teammates, and doubles as a way to choose wherever you want to switch teleport, but falls off at higher levels.

 

~Smokescreen - Poor excuse of a stun, can't cast in the air or while moving, drastically shorter duration than Invisibility. But it costs 15 less energy, oh gee thanks.

~Invisibility - Can cast while in the air (and while moving if you are sliding in midair) and has a drastically longer duration than Smokescreen.

 

~Teleport - Unnecessary fancy flip that hinders the ability and only serves as eye-candy, decent range, stuns the one enemy you target but is not advantageous because the useless fancy flip counteracts the stun, and has severely limited targeting to only enemies, teammates, and defense pods. What about a Life Support Capsu- no ok.

~Switch Teleport - Combined with Decoy gives it essentially free-aim capabilities, relocates and stuns an enemy of choice, no matter the level, and can switch teammates out of (or into) a sticky situation.

 

~Bladestorm -  Fancy stabby animations that hinders the ability and only serves as eye-candy (sound familiar?), limited to 14 or so targets, does flat 2,000 armor-ignore damage, gives user Invincibility during duration, but falls flat on its face when enemies scale beyond level 35 unless you stack Intensify and Blind Rage (say good-bye to your efficiency) but even that will fall off soon after.

~Radial Disarm - Removes all ranged capabilities of all enemies in range regardless of level and forces them into melee, perfectly synergizing with Invisibility to mow them down with melee, and comes close to trivializing two entire factions while being useless to the third.

 

See any problems?

 

Why can't Ash throw 3 Shurikens that stuns enemies and "marks them for death", increasing crit damage received from all sources while giving off a visual representation both fitting the assassin play style and letting the team know who to target first?

Why can't all enemies affected by Smokescreen have 50% reduced accuracy for the duration of the ability (and increase the energy cost to 50 because of this)?

Why can't Teleport be free-aim and leave all enemies that were targeting you at the time be confused like Switch Teleport does, letting you dish out melee attacks on your target before his buddies realize where you are instead of aim-botting you 100% of the time?

Why can't Bladestorm receive bonus damage from the melee combo counter even though it adds to it, and be affected by Natural Talent, so people who still want the long period of invincibility can have it while those who want faster attacks can have it?

 

With the release of the Dragon Nikana, I have tried and tried to treat Ash like a true space ninja, but...I just can't. His abilities are rendered obsolete by the God of Mischief because Ash's fall off in higher level gameplay while Loki's abilities remain airtight no matter the difficulty curve.

 

DE, give us few remaining Ash players a reason to choose Ash over Nova, Rhino, or Trinity.

 

DE, give us a real space ninja in a game about space ninjas. Please.

 

Edit: I do not want Ash to be like Loki, nor do I play Ash like Loki. I just want Ash to be a ninja frame instead of a "that other guy with invisibility" frame. Loki is a great frame, because he has UTILITY. UTILITY's effectiveness is endless. Can Ash have some UTILITY, so he too can be effective at any level?

 

Edit #2: Mission complete. I have accomplished my goal with this thread. DE has finally come out and said that they will be buffing Ash (and Banshee [and nerfing Trinity!])! I never realized how big this thread would become, I just didn't want anyone to forget about him. Thank you for all the feedback/suggestions/ideas to fix Ash! I hope DE can peek in here and get any ideas to help bring my favorite frame back from the ashes (ha, get it?).

Edited April 27, 2014 by Stefanovich

[Zinthir]

>Inb4 Ash fan rage

[Bobsplosion]

Ash is a poor man's Loki.

 

He's only good if you don't have a Loki yet.

Assuming those conditions, then he's pretty good.

[Sixty5]

Ash has all the tools he needs to be a great melee frame.

 

He can hit drones with 1, he can stun with his 2 and buff his melee damage AND proc berserker, and his 3 is a great initiation ability, his 4 hits rather hard and builds up combos, it will also let you regen your shields/

Finally he is both bulky and fast.

 

There are no bad frames, only bad players.

 

 

 

Edit, as for comparisons with Loki, Loki's skillset specializes in manipulation, which is as a whole more effective, however most people are scrubs and run loki as a slave to the 2 key, and therefore are not using his full potential. Comparing him to ash in this respect is like saying Banshee is worse than Excalibur because Radial Javelin hits harder than Soundquake.

Edited April 23, 2014 by Sixty5

[Saenol]

Of course Ash is going to stink if you try to use Ash for exactly the same role you would use Loki for.

Ash is not Loki. Ash is not that bad, unless you are playing your Ash as a Loki.

Edited April 23, 2014 by Saenol

[Temperance000]

I am currently using Ash, and I find him quite useful.  Granted, I have not used Loki yet, but I feel that I would suffer terribly with such a frail (if powerfully versatile) Frame.  True, I do not generally play high-tier survival or defense either, but with proper modding, I feel that Ash could rival or surpass Loki in certain respects.  Each Frame is intended for a niche in the team.  Let's not try to replace one with the other.

[holdenagincourt]

So just to get in on this discussion early...nothing in your post provides evidence for, or even really argues that, Ash is "useless."

 

Useless means just what it sounds like. The rescue target, for example, is generally "useless." The warframe cryopod in defense missions is "useless."

 

What you're arguing is that Ash is not as effective as Loki, but I guess you accomplished baiting people in with an inflammatory title that doesn't actually describe the contents of your topic.

 

You sneer at "eye candy," but a lot of fans of Warframe and of certain characters in it are attracted at least in part to the aesthetic. Warframe puts a fair amount of emphasis on its visual aesthetic, which is something that enriches the game and allows people to live out the fantasy they want going into it. You seem to assume that everyone should play with an eye to maximizing their killing power in high waves of endless defense or survival, but others might value other considerations in the game over that and appreciate aesthetic choices that, while they may not be optimized for frame efficiency, look cool and respond to certain desires they may have for their gaming experience.

 

In terms of gameplay, Ash does have a selection of skills that are better suited to non-stationary missions or playing solo than contributing to an endless defense/survival (although, since he gets stealth damage multipliers on melee on demand and stuns enemies in a radius, he's not "useless" in those situations by any means). This is also not necessarily a bad thing; different frames should be suited to different ways of playing the game. If I wanted to never fail a mission I would bring Nyx, but I find Nyx excruciatingly boring to play so sometimes I like to use less "optimal" picks like Oberon or Ash.

 

Of course, I still think Teleport and Shuriken need buffs, and Blade Storm should probably either do maximum health damage or percent missing health damage, but these are the same issues a lot of frames have. A lot of frames have first powers that need to be buffed or changed, and which lose effectiveness against large groups of enemies or high level enemies. A lot of frames have a power with awkward mechanics like Teleport. And most frames that have a damage- rather than utility-focused ultimate face similar scaling problems against high level enemies. Ash just gets more hate than those other frames and powers because everyone goes for the simplistic and superficial comparison to Loki, who scales extremely well in the types of missions that people who post here enjoy spamming because damage falls off as enemies level up while utility does not. This doesn't mean Ash is "useless," but it does mean that there is a fundamental power shift in certain modes of the game toward some characters.

Edited April 23, 2014 by holdenagincourt

[Zero.No.Hikari]

Aren't you the same guy who said banshee is useless and we should delete her? Please don't move on to another frame because you were proven wrong.

[Bobsplosion]

Useless means just what it sounds like. The rescue target, for example, is generally "useless." The warframe cryopod in defense missions is "useless."

I know what you're getting at, but the rescue target can actually shoot and kill enemies.

 

The Cryopod is useless, however.

[SquirmyBurrito]

~Teleport - Unnecessary fancy flip that hinders the ability and only serves as eye-candy, decent range, stuns the one enemy you target but is not advantageous because the useless fancy flip counteracts the stun, and has severely limited targeting to only enemies, teammates, and defense pods. What about a Life Support Capsu- no ok.

~Switch Teleport - Combined with Decoy gives it essentially free-aim capabilities, relocates and stuns an enemy of choice, no matter the level, and can switch teammates out of (or into) a sticky situation.

 

Why can't Teleport be free-aim

 

1. The enemy stagger lasts longer than the flip. The flip is actually rather quick now, and is not much different than Loki's delay post swap.

2. Two abilities>One ability is common sense, do not use that as an argument for it being better than said one ability.

3. Why should it be free-aim?

[Sixty5]

Rescue target actually was pretty useful last time I checked, considering that every shot they fire hits the head.

 

I'd take 3 rescue targets over PuG teammates any day.

[OkamiMilo]

ash is a nice warframe. But the people can see this. Only like loki because you can cloak more time with loki. But ash is the real ninja C: Shurikens , bladestorm a moves from a ninja. xD loki is like a ghost. xD

[(PSN)Soju_Fett]

I like Ash because he ISN'T perfect.  And I personally like all of his cool animations.  I'm not interested in playing with a frame that can stay invisible for the entire duration of the mission (I've heard this is very doable).  Boring.  My Loki is cooking now.  I'm sure he'll be fun too. But I'm going to do my best not to abuse invisibility.

[Sasquatchias]

I wouldn't say Ash is useless, but he does fall off in late game due to his lack of utility/CC and poor scaling. Thats not too say he is entirely useless, he just doesn't bring as much to the table as every other frame aside from Nekros, who is always loved due to his Desecrate (though I happen to find his Terrify useful since you can create a bit of breathing room for yourself if your swarmed.)

[---ExcaliburPrime---]

Loki melee>Ash melee

Why?Because you can make enemies run to you, cast invisibility and mow them down at the right moment.

 

Ash is trash.

[Senketsu_]

why cant he just be a fun frame to play becasue you like his unique skill that loki dosnt have, to just enjoy?

[Senketsu_]

I know what you're getting at, but the rescue target can actually shoot and kill enemies.

 

The Cryopod is useless, however.

the cryopod is an object of defense. how can something that is just a game mode object be useless? its not like its an AI that runs around. that comparison it just stupid. just like hating on a frame just because it dosnt fit your play style.  

[(PSN)Soju_Fett]

Loki melee>Ash melee

Why?Because you can make enemies run to you, cast invisibility and mow them down at the right moment.

 

Ash is trash.

 

Lol. Is that Ash I see as your avatar?

[TheGentlemanRolePlayer]

the cryopod is an object of defense. how can something that is just a game mode object be useless? its not like its an AI that runs around. that comparison it just stupid. just like hating on a frame just because it dosnt fit your play style.  

 

... I want to see Cryopods run around and hit things with robot arms now. Yes.

[cloudyDev]

I agree with this guy's post because...

 

Nova and Ash are both damage dealers (Nova is fine the way she is btw).

 

How is that fair? Nova is a walking, kill stealing nuclear explosion. Ash has little CC compared to her.

 

Point in case: Ash isn't bad; he is great! BUT other frames are just SO much better unfortunately.

 

People like Ash because he is branded a ninja frame but doesn't fit the bill in terms utility and ability to kill.

 

That is the major flaw.

 

Good night ladies and gentlemen!

Edited April 23, 2014 by DeceptionBlade

[dancingknight]

Every now and then, I see people scoffing at players always using Loki's invisibility. Why? He is squishy. He needs to be invisible, preferably all the time. 

[(PSN)DanteVincent]

This proves one thing:

 

#lokimasterrace

 

kthxbb

 

Jk about the bye bye, on thread i feel that ash along with banshee have been long forgotten by devs, ash at least can keep himself alive and be mediocre, banshe can't even stand on her feet, oh well, ash, other than looks is far on my favorite's list so i can't even bother giving a thorough opinion, but it does need to be balanced.

 

Make ash the dmg powerhouse he's supposed to be, keave utility to loki.

 

Can't resist myself here : Give banshee a way to defend herself, bring back overheat, tweak terrify and shadows of the dead and finally tweak hallowed ground and renewal to be useful, such potential on these last four...

 

Were all that to happen i'd have a very hard time complaining about bad warframes.

[(PSN)DanteVincent]

Every now and then, I see people scoffing at players always using Loki's invisibility. Why? He is squishy. He needs to be invisible, preferably all the time. 

True and you are not immune to bullets should you get on their way or splash damage while invisible, which means being reckless is not an option on advanced play with loki, invisibility just brings him on par with the others, the rest is still up to you, i ve seen many terrible lokis and many amazing ones.

[Triburos]

Every now and then, I see people scoffing at players always using Loki's invisibility. Why? He is squishy. He needs to be invisible, preferably all the time. 

Depends on the mission type.

In Defense, it is perfectly possible to defend as Loki without the need of Invisibility. Decoy and Radial Disarm are more than enough.

Hell, only time I pop it is when I start taking a buttload of damage or just need the extra damage boost for whatever reason.

[Arlayn]

>Inb4 Ash fan rage

Ash fan rage is right!

 

I may be a Nekros player... wait not don't put me in the same category as the farmers... I AM THE SHINIGAMI NEKROS!!! The Master of death! In all its beautiful, and wonderfully delightful forms...

 

But Ash is like second best on my list. Extreme survival, and could easily outlast an army of Loki's who die all over the room because they lack the ability to keep up in the massacre... Ash on the other hand is master of the harvest... He is like the Shinigami Nekros right hand man. Like Shinigami Nekros is The Death God, and Ash is his archangel of death...

 

Loki is just some trickster playing around the room. If you want serious killers you would play as Serious killing machines like Nekros, and Ash.