Disclaimer: Main Nova, Do Not Want Nerf, But.

[Niennah]

It appears that certain parts of the community will rage until the nerf is delivered. Therefore, I started thinking about what kind of change would satisfy the raging waves, based on what they are saying, and also not completely break Nova's playstyle (or at least the way I see it).

 

A side note on that bracketed part: I do "bullet time" Nova build that uses high mobility together with mprime slow to avoid most of the damage, flank groups of enemies and pick out the most dangerous targets before they can react. The only "durability" mod in the build is redirection, yet it performs great in most core gameplay parts, like survivals/defense up to 40 without Trinity. I also primarily use sniper rifles.

 

You can see that with such setup the chain explosion of mprime is crucial for clearing up masses of light enemies, as snipers are ill suited for that purpose, and using AMD requires standing still for a long enough time to be gunned down even by slowed enemies (and then it'll just explode on the ceiling due to buggy tracking anyway).

 

Back to the point of this topic: the main complaint seems to be that mprime kills the enemies too quickly, without letting them have shooty fun with their own weapons and abilities. So how about we have the explosion of mprime happen with a delay after enemy death, instead of immediately? 2-3 seconds sounds about right, with perhaps a 10-15% increase of explosion radius to compensate for enemy spread. (Incidentally, this will also help your neighbourhood Nekros to have his fun with the bodies).

 

 

Tl;dr: Modify Mprime to explode with delay after each enemy death instead of instantly.

[Kripnex]

Yes this seems fine.

[SharpteethSeven]

My personal suggestion:

 

Nerf the damage, BUT, rather than having the explosion happen on death, have it happen either upon taking damage or upon taking a certain *amount* of damage (let's say damage equivalent to its base unmodified damage). This would still allow the "chain reaction" to occur as it currently does, but it would simply cause hefty aoe damage, rather than lethal AoE damage.

[Namacyst]

Half the Slow debuff, remove the extra damage taken for m.prime explosions, remove the range scaling of explosions with mods (not the casting range) and make it fix.

 

This way M.Prime can not let a whole room explode with max range mods because enemies will survive when not clustered, Enemies are not slowed so much and can spread out faster (and don't slow down the Waves in Defense when there is a noob Nova moron insta spamming 4 all the time) and teammates still can pick their own targets and kill them before everything goes boom and ruins their fun.

 

Currently M.Prime does way too much with too much range and damage.. this will nerf it enough to be atleast called a nerf and maybe a Nova will actually use her other abilities again.

[MrJxt]

How about the explosion inflicts a DoT equal to the blast damage and stacks. You still get the chaining effect but it'll take a few seconds longer.

[Myocarde]

It's amazing how people still think in Mercury mob terms when discussing Nova's ulti damage. A semi-good solution would be to "buff" the actual debuff part (increase damage multiplier and slow) but remove the chain explosions whatsoever. Nova will retain her AMD as a small but powerfull nuke and will turn into utility caster.

But, i'm actually scared of nerfs coming from DE. As an example, Vauban was turned into a "one-trick pony", because right now there's no point in building him around Bastille anymore, when you can have cheap vortexes and you still retain the same level of CC as with pre-nerf bastilles. (And yes, he has no niche anymore (maybe, aside from vortex farming with Necros and shred-flux rifle) since Nyx can do way better on Infested defense.)

 

Still, nerfing something good and fun, so something worse and unfun (but what some very vocal persons use) will look better in comparison... The logic escapes me. It's not a competitive game, we're allowed to have "godframes" or, at least, some means of "cheating", because you can experience the whole game in a month and then are just left with polishing your builds or favourite guns to perfection.

[tris1]

I rarely see novas as it is maybe 1 in 15 matches even then im reving them all they need to do is take out the slow effect and place it into another new skill for her and make the chain happen one after another not all at once she keeps all her damage and cc but is across two skills and her last skill is slow to kill so others can shoot the targets

[ThePresident777]

The debate is being skewed by people who don't want ults at all, or want them on a long timer.  Half of anything is not going to satisfy them. and they're the ones driving the rage train.  Most of us are just reacting to it. 

 

Zero and half are mutually exclusive.  You cannot make a compromise between mutually exclusive options.  All you can do about them is make separate sandboxes for them, like nightmare mode challenges.  A large chunk of the work is already done.   All DE has to do is deploy it, put some permanent NM challenges on the solar map.  Then tweak it to satisfy people who hate ability spam.  It'll bring more variety to the game and give the anti-ult-spam faction their game play without robbing anyone else of theirs.

 

The solar map is huge and has a lot of redundancy.  It would be put to better use by putting experimental nodes off the main trunk.  Does anybody go to Sedna for anything but kappa and alerts?  What about the majority of locations on Eris, Uranus, Saturn, Mercury, Phobos, Europa, etc.?

 

By giving ideas their own locations, instead of making them a default condition, you can make them fit for purpose, as well as the other mentioned benefits.

 

EDIT:  For example, alarms should sound when an explosion, or other large energy expenditure, goes off.  This should lead to mission failure in stealth missions.
 

Edited May 2, 2014 by ThePresident777

[Dogoframe]

It's amazing how people still think in Mercury mob terms when discussing Nova's ulti damage.

 

Not really, Mprime kills everything in the room as far as Outer Terminus, including all Survivals up to 5 min and all Defenses up to 5 waves, with the exception of a heavier unit here and there.

 

You guys can argue as to how and how much Mprime should or should not be adjusted, but the skill is pure boring when used in any regular gameplay scenario.

 

If it is a must have or important ability when fighting lvl 50+ enemies only, it is a fundamental game design flaw.

[Killerdude8]

The complaint isn't that Mprime kills enemies too fast, It's that Mprime does too much for a Single ability, AND isn't affected by most of the Negative Modifiers on Corrupt Mods.

 

 

Cast an ability that Slows enemies, Deals double damage and Chain explodes, That covers the entire map and can be cast for 25 energy?

Do you see the problem?

It's $&*&*#(%&ly OP.

 

They nerfed frost because he was instapick for Defence, but Nova is instapick for everything.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Killerdude8

[Varzy]

My suggestion for the problem was attacking the "covers the entire map" portion of the problem.

 

Basically, instead of MP affecting a 360 degree, 25m radius around you, it should affect a 120 degree cone in front of you (radius is still 25m). The debuffs remain the same, but now it's much more of a 'glass cannon' kind of ability that won't save you if you're flanked, thus needing to either be skilled or keep your back glued to your allies in heavier gameplay.

 

We need to step away from making everything a radial attack anyway.

[Prodromata]

Giving Molecular Prime a delay would actually give enemies 'decoys'. The bodies would take no damage but would remain visible. This nonsense happens with Rhino's Stomp. The only way to counter it is by designating Enemy Radar or Enemy Sense as placeholders. This is unacceptable. Anti-Matter Drop is rarely used. You see it more often as a 'benchmarking' toy. By the time an enemy is at a level where AMD is required the average user would be bent over and spanked for even contemplating their time consuming process of charging AMD. Anti-Matter Drop can't be modded for range. It's blast radius is tiny. It covers about the same area as a fully Firestormed Penta. To use it, one must sacrifice everything for survivability and Radars.

I find it amusing that everyone wants the frames that are REQUIRED for 'end game' content play to be nerfed. Loki, Trinity, Nova.. Molecular Prime is simply not MEANT for enemies below level 45. The problem here is Nova going into low level missions with PUB groups and spamming the ability. There only needs to be a RESTRICTION placed on Molecular Prime. If you change or nerf the ability, you lose a huge component in bruising late wave and late survival enemies. This restriction would not be a cooldown or any such nonsense. It would be similar to a conclave rating. I've seen this mentioned before. Personally, I despise Molecular Prime. I strictly use Anti-Matter Drop. I just can't take the 4 spammers seriously. They have no excuse and no defense. There is no strategy required for making an entire room go 'boom'. It's childish instant gratification at its worst. HOWEVER: Changing or nerfing the ability because of these players' inability to control themselves would be unacceptable. Molecular Prime is needed and necessary. Loki, Vauban, Frost, Nova. Even after the booms stop provalated enemies sucked into Vortex take good damage from each Primed death.

So. The abilities are fine. No one complains about people dominating with Anti-Matter Drop. And don't cry for a nerf just because someone CAN dominate with it due to Fleeting Expertise and Streamline with no downsides. They added Energy Leech Leaders and others into the game. AMD specialists often build entirely around using AMD as a primary weapon. Guess what? Energy Leech Leaders are immune to AMD. Guess what what? The game will spawn abnormal amounts of Energy Leech Leaders if it detects a player spamming abilities that annihilate mobs of enemies left and right. An AMD/Wormhole specialist will do this. Energy Leech Leaders are my worst nightmare. So.. Steps have been taken.

If a change must occur. Let Molecular Prime exist as a buff/debuff. When the Primed enemy dies, they destabilize into dust. Sorry Nekros, you would have to 'take one for the team' on this one.

The bottom line is this: for the player base to assume for even one moment that they understand balancing on the level that the 'Eye in the Sky' does is absurd and arrogant. I don't know how any of it fits together. Nova has been a source of QQ since I began playing. She still has not received a nerf to Molecular Prime that stopped any crying. What makes anyone think she will this time? The game needs 'nukes'. Hmm, let's see... Which frames can be truly classified as 'nukes'? Oh yeah....only the one...

May be a few typos. I'm tired.

[fatpig84]

My idea of M Prime.

 

Damage 300.

Slow debuff 75%

Damage Multiplier 300%

 

herp derp.

 

So basically her explosions does 900 damage vs 1.6k now.

But her endgame potential is significantly increased, allowing her to aid the "main casters" like Ember and Mag to get bigger and better numbers.

Remember moar numbers is good.

Edited May 3, 2014 by fatpig84

[Tatersail]

Weird how nobody seems to talk about AMD(Antimatter Drop, nova's OP 2)....  

 

personally I have no issues with Mol prime...  it stops working as a nuke at around level 60, and becomes a debuff, I think the debuff should be a 40% damage bonus not 200% to let Rhino, ember and Banshee work, and remove the snare.

 

AMD is another issue, its somtimes buggy but it also often deals stupid damage.

you don't have to stand still to use it, and casting multiple AMD's feed each other until you get stupid numbers.

 

simply running around with a melee weapon, spamming AMD, I was getting 800,000+ aoes ... I wasn't even shooting the orbs.

I assume casting 10 orbs means the math does something like

100 aoe hits 9 orbs x4 damage absorbed,

400 aoe hits 8 orbs x4 damage absorbed,

2000 aoe hits 7 orbs x4 damage absorbed,

10,000 aoe hits 6 orbs x4 damage absorbed,

50,000 aoe hits 5 orbs x4 damage absorbed,

250,000 aoe hits 4 orbs x4 damage absorbed,

1250,000 aoe hits 3 orbs x4 damage absorbed,

Does it matter at this stage.... 2 orbs x4 damage absorbed,

anything now will instagib.. 1 orbs x4 damage absorbed,

last orb lands will kill anything in the game.

 

even 5 orbs launched kills most things in the game.

 

I often see 80k and 400k so I guess my values are wrong.

 

if your quick enough you can keep your AMDs running and guide them thro doors, then cast new ones to feed and they they drop.

 

 

I like the way this works, but.. its also stupid.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Tatersail

[Ezren]

The suggestion was made elsewhere to simply make it un-castable until all of the previously marked targets were dead. 

 

Which sounds just fine to me, it encourages careful use.

[Wolfstorm18]

Buff the damage and nerf the energy cost. It cost too much energy to spam M-Prime. 

 

Sadly I never find the whiners in game. They play more in the forums than in the missions. I would love to spam M-Prime just to troll them. 

[DrBorris]

Make M. Prime a 3rd ability (75 energy) and get rid of the explosions. Then buff AMD and make it her 4th. (and make teleport 50 energy)

 

 

I know most will bash, but it makes Nova less spamy, and makes some skill be required to do ridiculous damage. And it makes her more OP :D

[xkillo32]

that's not really gonna help much

in t3 survival 1hour+ mprime does nothing but debuff for slow and 2x dmg

[Volt_Cruelerz]

It appears that certain parts of the community will rage until the nerf is delivered. Therefore, I started thinking about what kind of change would satisfy the raging waves, based on what they are saying, and also not completely break Nova's playstyle (or at least the way I see it).

 

A side note on that bracketed part: I do "bullet time" Nova build that uses high mobility together with mprime slow to avoid most of the damage, flank groups of enemies and pick out the most dangerous targets before they can react. The only "durability" mod in the build is redirection, yet it performs great in most core gameplay parts, like survivals/defense up to 40 without Trinity. I also primarily use sniper rifles.

 

You can see that with such setup the chain explosion of mprime is crucial for clearing up masses of light enemies, as snipers are ill suited for that purpose, and using AMD requires standing still for a long enough time to be gunned down even by slowed enemies (and then it'll just explode on the ceiling due to buggy tracking anyway).

 

Back to the point of this topic: the main complaint seems to be that mprime kills the enemies too quickly, without letting them have shooty fun with their own weapons and abilities. So how about we have the explosion of mprime happen with a delay after enemy death, instead of immediately? 2-3 seconds sounds about right, with perhaps a 10-15% increase of explosion radius to compensate for enemy spread. (Incidentally, this will also help your neighbourhood Nekros to have his fun with the bodies).

 

 

Tl;dr: Modify Mprime to explode with delay after each enemy death instead of instantly.

This wouldn't really do anything because those enemies are doomed anyways...

 

Perhaps a better solution might be that any damage enemies take during that delay gets distributed to neighboring enemies when they explode according to some coefficient.  At max level, maybe 25% of the overkill damage gets dealt to surrounding enemies?

[Joyfulmama]

Another good suggestion, that makes two together with the cone-shaped mprime aoe.

[turbinea]

Perhaps instead of 360 effect, it could be cast as Excalibur's Radial Javelin, 7 or so 'rays' that shoot from center. You get the idea.

Plus other debuffs should be removed, slow down and double damage are making this power seriously OP.

[Thaumatos]

Stick the explosion radius at 8m and remove the slow.

 

Then make the AI scatter after being hit with Mprime.

 

That'd actually insert some form of skill requirement to using it.  OP tries to make like he's not just pressing 4 and winning the map.  No offense to him, but there's currently no skill/strategy/etc to Mprime whatsoever.

[ThePresident777]

To say that there is no skill to using Mprime is say that there is no skill to using explosions.  Which is both untrue and irrelevant because not everyone plays for skill.  Some people play for the spectacle.  Warframe has been a spectacular game thus far.  That is what has attracted people to it.  If they didn't want a spectacular game, they would have chosen to play some of the many non-spectacular games available.  If you destroy what makes Warframe unique, i.e., the spectacle of exploding or mowing down hordes of enemies, speeding around, bouncing off walls, etc., then the game becomes just another choice among many.  It becomes nothing special, nothing worth keeping, or spending money on.

 

 

And, with so many opinions floating around the forums, how is DE supposed to know what to do.  They can't unless they implement them all and see which options people choose.  The solar map has a lot of redundancy that is going to waste and would be put to good use as testing grounds for various ideas.