Shuriken Smokescreen Teleport Bladestorm

[SirAuron]

Here are some minor suggestions to make this Ninja Frame excel.

 

Shurikens should cripple and make enemies bleed and bleed should do great damage.

 

Smokescreen should blind close enemies while cloaking and cause them to shoot in all directions and miss you.

 

Holding down 3 should make you gut the enemy you teleport to while you get cloaked (or he gets blinded) causing him to bleed. Not holding it down simply blinds nearby enemies as well or cloaks you after teleporting.

 

Bladestorm should be faster and blind everyone and make ones he cuts up bleed if they live.

 

Bleed is the main thing here. MAKE EM BLEED!

 

And lower shuriken energy cost or make it worth that cost by making bleed damage worth it. 

 

And make teleport gutting have an impact by making enemy slowly recover but not too slow.

[shut]

For Shuriken, I think that it should be made into a pseudo-CC skill. Ranking it up should increase the number of shurikens thrown to a much higher number (~5 at max level, affected by Duration?), with each Shuriken's damage decreased to 300 with guaranteed bleed procs. Each Shuriken causes the enemy to stagger. Energy cost unchanged.

 

Smokescreen has the most potential to act as a support ability. It would be pretty interesting if it made you invisible, as it does now, but left behind a true "smokescreen" cloud. Enemies targeting players / objectives who are inside the cloud wouldn't be able to pinpoint their location and would basically spray-and-pray into the entire cloud. Cloud size (and, therefore, enemy accuracy) affected by Range. Energy cost increased to 50 to compensate.

 

Teleport's mostly fine. It just needs to have its target selection expanded to include lockers, storage containers, explosive barrels, security system interfaces, and life support capsules. Targeted enemies should not be "alerted" until after their stagger animation ends.

 

For Blade Storm, all "marked-for-death" targets should be placed under the same effect as Terrify. Animation should be sped up (or, if that would look too silly, create a clone or two that attack enemies alongside Ash so the whole thing ends twice or three times as quickly). Guaranteed bleed procs for anything that survives.

[Brasten]

*major formatting error edits*

With the upcoming Ash rework its good IMO to start throwing in feedback from Ash players. I've been using him far more since Melee 2.0 and have gone a good number of NON-DEFENSE games with just a good melee weapon. I have mostly built him mostly for Energy Efficiency (75%) and treat Smokebomb not as weak Invisibility, but as a combined utility power damage buff.

The TL;DR highlights about Ash are

-- Duration? That's a thing?

-- What is CC?

Ash is almost pure damage and no crowd control, this makes him poor at anything other than mid-level slaughter. You have to really fight with his powerset to get him working, and mostly fall back on his weapons carrying him. To get him working he needs a reason to use Duration (increasing Smokescreen time isn't worthwhile, please read below). Also something to make him helpful in Defensive situations, and useful when just spamming damage stops being viable.

To improve on what Ash is and put him in the "Decent" column he should become the King of Cripple Stagger Bleed. Slow enemies down with Crippling effects, check their movements with temporary Staggers, and Bleed them out (less important but thematically appropriate). That's on top of what his Weapons do in Melee. No Aggressive attack Warframe like Ash should be purely beholden to their weapons.

Abilities

Shuriken

Benefits: Very easy early game auto targeting and fairly reliable damage. With energy efficiency it should be a cheap ranged spammable power

Weakness: Damage and usefulness drops off dramatically as enemy health and armor increase. No amount of spam will make it compete with just using a good gun for the same function. Shuriken competes directly with Guns in function, and losses because it costs energy (less sustainable than ammo), does less damage, and more importantly uses up a valuable Mod slot.

Suggestions: With the weakness far outweighing its very minimal benefit Shuriken needs a real rework. It's much like Nova's #1, its a fun trick at lower levels, but you ditch it later if you need the Mod Slot for something more important. Unlike the above posters I do no think just slapping a Bleed status effect on it will bring it up to par. We can look around at Warframes that do have 1s that work or continue to be used.

-- Sonic Boom, has almost no damage but its knockback knockdown makes it crowd control viable into the later game.

-- Slash Dash, comparable damage to Shuriken if you hit two targets. More if you hit more. While shorter range (assuming you don't max Duration and push Dash to 53 meters) it is almost a mobility power so its a functional escape and closer for 25 energy.

-- Freeze, still has issues targeting (would love to see it track like Shuriken) however it freezes a target and does a damage type that's good on shields. It can take a single big target out of the fight for a few seconds, assuming the rest of the team aren't a bunch of reactive twitch shooters (Freeze should not break until the time is up, period)

-- Decoy, deployable CC distraction, losses some usefulness late game when it gets 1-shotted but still useful distraction.

-- Pull, ragdoll! Which can move enemies out of cover and functionally stuns them for several seconds. This one of the most powerful #1 powers. When (and that's a late when) the damage drops off, it remains a super effect CC. Just keep pulling every time something gets up.

-- Ripline, like an alterant single target Slash Dash or Super Jump, with a bit of CC like Pull. It also seems to be the exception to the 50 meter targeting rule.

-- Shock, multitarget several second stun

Crowd Control or Movement are the keys to most of these beyond whatever damage they do. Ash doesn't need another Movement power but what he really seriously lacks is Crowd Control, which you will see later as well. However I think more can be done with Shuriken than just slapping on an assured Bleed Proc and a stagger on hit. This would be a good place to explore a low cost Debuff. Right now there is 0 downside to using energy efficiency with it, and 0 benefit to boosting its range. The one that comes to my mind is Slow effect.

Give Shuriken a Duration based Slow (Think of it like cripple or hobbling, doesn't have to be the extreme 50% of Nova), assured Bleed Proc, and a Stagger on hit. Leave its damage and cost alone. If possible, see if it can have its ranged uncapped. A Slow is a bit of CC but is more a debuff for escaping, chasing, slowing down the rate of incoming fire. Much like Freeze or Ripline, it could be used to take a Heavy or Leader out of the fight for a moment or reduce their lethality slightly.

This would open the field to making Shuriken useful (Distant Slow) at later levels, and interesting (Bleed stacking) at others.

Smokescreen

Benefits: Short duration invisibility, mid size radius stagger, damage buff. All good things if you know when and how to apply them.

Weakness: Must be deployed on the ground and not moving. Short duration.

Suggestions: Smokescreen is actually in a fairly good place and doesn't need a major rework. Tweaks yes, rework no.

Some people comparte Smokescreen disfavorably to Invisibility on Loki. In my experience playing both, this comes from a lack of understanding of Smokescreens other uses. I can understand that confusion because the Stagger isn't really as long as it could be AND is not increased with Duration. To understand where Smokescreen needs to be tweek people need to understand how its used.

Combined, short duration, stagger, damage buff, and lower energy cost make it a disruption power. At 35 energy its actually okay to use frequently (especially on an Efficiency build). The Stagger disrupts enemy action, it stops heavies from ground pounding, it interrupts gun fire (Scorchers most helpful), had a decent radius. Using an even lower Duration from efficiency means you can drop the Stagger more often, its Ashe's only really crowd control right now.

The Stagger and Damage buff are also good follow ups to Teleport.

Here are the tweaks I'd like to see done to Smokescreen. Useable on the move/run, could still be "must be on ground", but it needs to be usable on the move. The breaking of Ash's momentum to throw the Smokescreen almost kills the power, the duration is low enough that having to start back up again means you've wasted valuable seconds, where Loki has an abundance of (and who is a physical faster warframe). Stagger duration increased to 2 seconds and impacted by Duration, this means a Min of 0.8 Seconds, Max 4.58. Although a Max time stagger means its only 3.4 meters, meaning only targets giving you a melee hug.

The change in the Stagger would play alongside the non-range-capped Crippling Shuriken. From a Min/Max (corrupt mod) stand if you build Damage Spam you lose your CC. If you build up the CC duration and distant you lose damage. Currently the way Smokescreen functions I don't see a compelling reason to throw large amounts of Duration at it. It's the only power on Ash that uses it, it doesn't give a big boost, AND it actually reduces the amount you throw out the current 1 second stagger CC. Low Duration Efficiency Spam > Long Duration Range Reduced builds on the current Ash. Give us more of reason to pick duration.

-- Useable when moving

-- Stagger becomes a Stun with duration increased 2 seconds, modifiable by Duration

Teleport

Benefits: Closing power. 1 second Stagger

Weakness: Hard to target. Limited target pool. Ranged Capped.

Suggestions: Teleport doesn't need to be free target but it does need a little aim assist at extreme ranges. I keep having to mash the button and hear "beep, beep, beep" of an invalid target before it will go. This is critical time delays that hurt both with Smokescreen duration AND the new Melee combo system. Combined with the delay on landing, and it really before hard to highly-improbable to use to effectively chain between distant spawn groups. Along with that is the need to remove the Range Cap. Being stuck at 50 meters with a Rank 3 mod when both Smokescreen and Bladestorm both get befit off range boosts.

Really there isn't much Teleport benefits from expect power Efficiency (noticing a trend at this point? I hope so) so it can be used more often.

Outside of that Teleport is actually working fine for what its used for, an aggressive closing power. And its use is very aggressive.

My most common opening moves in a fight is to Teleport into the thickest pack of general cannon fodder, drop a Smokescreen for the additional Stagger and damage Buff, and go to town with Channeled Melee swings of a good Reach weapon. Repeat until all are minion types are dead. It really is a manual mode Blade Storm for 60 base energy, and I can almost get comparable damage output for less safety.

Bladestorm

Benefits: Longest deployment range with widest target pool of any Ult expect perhaps Hydroid's Tentacle Swarm. It can be targeted out to 50 meters and hits up to 15 enemies in a initial 20 meter pack. When we look at other Warframe Ults (Molecular Prime, Overload, Rhino Stomp) they are all Warframe centered ~25 meter radius. This is why Blade Storm has this as an advantage. It really is one. Its actually an ability he can use while doing Defense because he can stay close to the defense point AND throw his Ult at spawn groups clustered farther out instead of having to leave the Pod and run them down. Bladestorm will even keep tracking marked targets as they spread out, which means its awesome to hit clumps of enemies as they come out of doorways in there "Pathing" packs.

Bladestorm also makes Ash functionally invulnerable (although he can still take shield damage, and any Sential pet can be killed during it), which makes it a great panic button (again with an efficiency build).

Weakness: Duration of animation. You get locked into it and can't adapt what. If you hit 15 enemies thats about 15 seconds you are out of the fight, which is almost Bleedout time for an ally. If an ally dies just as you go into a 15 target Bladestorm you are very unlikely to be in a position to save them.

Targets glow Red and get killed by teammates. The Marked targets turning Red make them an instant eye draw and twitch shoot targets. I know I'm guilty of it, they're just so easy to pick out, you can't help but shoot at them. This means that an Ash is often dumped out of Bladestorm before even doing his full damage for the Energy (100 base, more reason why efficiency build is king of Ash) he put into it.

Targets are still threats. They glow red, and nothing else. They still run around at full speed, shoot just as much, and are still just as deadly while Ash is blinking about. They also remain a threat AFTER Ash hits them if they don't die, which is very likely at higher levels.

Suggestions: For all its RANGE, Bladestorm is a sub-par ult for dealing with Ults generally do. Even Valkyr's manual Bladestorm in Hysteria works better, because Valkyr remains on the field and Tanks bullets while running around bopping people. Like Shuriken, Bladestorm needs something more than damage. The Invulnerability of Ash is balanced by the Loc-in of the Damage part of the Ult, you can be hurt but you can't change what you're doing and adapt. The major problem comes Damage not scaling into later levels and Bladestorm really providing 0 functional help to the rest of team while its running.

Lets look at the Teleport Smokescreen Combo. With the Right Melee weapon for 60 energy, you can jump into the same pack you'd attack with Bladestorm. You Stagger every enemy in 10 meters, not just 15, and are not locked into the attack. You are still functionally invulnerable. Dropping a second Smokescreen when the first one runs out (16 seconds total) puts you at 95 energy for almost a better Ult. Certainly more flexible in what you can target. Again with the right weapon 4,000 damage is not outside the realm of doable, which is Bladestorm Corrupted damage.

Bladestorm needs at least two Stagger/Stuns. One on initiation, one on post hit. When an Ash hits a target they do get help up by Ash punching them, but a further post hit Stagger if they live wouldn't hurt. Perhaps when the Power ends and Ash returns to his starting point, a last Stagger if you will on anything that lived).

Bladestorm also needs some extra Status effect or Debuff, like the Shurikens. It needs to provide some benefit to the team to make up for the fact that its such a slow deployment. Virtually every other Ult is instant and has instant removal of enemies, or some other kind of CC if they don't die. A Slow effect would, again IMO be ideal here. This reduces marked targets threat by slowing down their rate of fire AND how quickly they advance. This would give a Bladestorm Utility function.

Lastly Bleed. Bleed proc things that live. Give it some extra DoT damage. Not necessarily helpful but keeps the Damage output on it thematically useful a bit longer.

-- Slow Marked targets (40% / 50% / 60% / 67%) for duration of animation, even if they've already been hit.

-- Stagger all targets on initial Mark, and at end of animation. Due to Slow initial stagger would last (1.4 / 1.5 / 1.6 / 1.7) seconds based on rank (just because of the slow down in recovery animation)

-- Bleed Proc on hit. Thematic minor damage buff.

That covers it. Slows on the Shurikens and Bladestorm. Give both a Bleed Proc. Give Smokescreen a 2 second Stun with an increasable Duration. Take a look at that hard coded Range caps on all power. See about getting Teleport some Aim Assist help. Not seriously major shifts power setup, just adding Utility where only Pure Damage exists now.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Brasten

[SirAuron]

Teleport could still use an assassination Bladestorm like follow up when holding down 3 and either blind nearby enemies or cloak you for 2-5 seconds whether you hold down 3 or not and cause bleeding if you do hold down 3.

 

The fixes I mention aside from teleport are quick fixes, but not the whole fix. Your fixes are not quick but are perhaps part of the whole fix.

[The_Diabetes]

As far as smokescreen why not make it into an aoe field in which every ally in it becomes invisible? That is pretty much how a smokescreen really works. Makes no sense that Ash throws down a smokescreen right next to me and I can't benefit from it even though I'm also a ninja. Ash badly needs some kind of group support in his kit and this would give it.

[HAYABU5A]

how about teleport -  if u teleport to a enemy humanoid u teleport inside of them and then explode out sending guts flying everywhere triggering an AOE fear proc to nearby units 

[arisaka]

Shuriken - does the same damage as it does now, except also marks the two enemies hit with something (a red arrow?) for several seconds (up to 10?)

 

Smokescreen - the AOE of the stun should be clouded with smoke for a duration and blind the enemies that stand in it. Also, teleporting to a new location creates the same smokescreen in that area if it's still active.

 

Teleport - If Ash teleports to an enemy marked by Shuriken, he also creates clones of himself that teleport to ANY OTHER marked enemy. Marked enemies being teleported to by Ash himself will receive (one?) Bladestorm hit, while the clones do half that damage. The energy cost should probably increase (not too much though) because of this buff.

 

Bladestorm - Ash should be able to interrupt this any time (maybe by double tapping jump?).

Edited April 30, 2014 by arisaka

[Vaskadar]

I think it'd be important to emphasize Ash's smoke ninja theme a little more. Instead of marking for death, perhaps blind the enemies hit by shuriken via an exploding smoke canister embedded in the shuriken themselves.

 

Blinding enemies enables him to be more stealth-oriented while maintaining offensive capabilities.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Vaskadar

[SirAuron]

Well, well, well, I actually got the bleed I wanted for Shuriken and Bladestorm. Never got any changes I requested before, this is a first.

 

 - Brilliant.

[Schwadronaut]

There is amazing constructive criticism to be found here. I wonder why this kind of feedback doesn't get immediately implemented. Maybe it's because it's 1% of the entire palaver on the forums and there are many woodies who request mounts, pets and rocket launchers that shoot rocket launchers.

 

My personal opinion is that Ash would gain +50% validity if the bugs got fixed. I've stopped using him after falling out of the map on teleports and bladestorms several times, having severe trouble targeting enemies with teleport, lotta glitches, visual stuff, it just all felt like an unfinished concept.

 

Also, the smoke theme is definitely something to be emphasized. I'm an Excal player but I wouldn't mind Ash adapting the blinding technique. Smoke screen causing invis and blind inside the cloud would be a cool maneuver.