Warframe Ability Changes

[Phobose]

Omfg clones of ash fighting in the blade storm. It just processed in my head and jesus christ im in love, loving the future ash changes and the balancing of the other frames, hope to see solid changes soon

[DeadScream]

I'd love to hear you explain how she's of any use now in high level survival and defence?

Man, actually she is the only way to bring you there, just because she removes any damage you could eventually take... 

 

Do you feel like you have any honor winning this way ? 

 

 

 

 

We've been asking for difficulty in this game. Removing the perma-invul was a necessity.

Edited May 13, 2014 by DeadScream

[CarrotSalad]

The catch being that Shield does not offer complete 360 degrees of protection from enemy fire. At the same time, it won't get shredded in an instant at high level if you're in a hallway. I'm honestly not too familiar with Volt; do Napalm fireballs go through the shield? What about their explosions?

 

Yea, agreed I do use volt all the time and the shield is fine as it is. I dont know how big they're making it but I thought it needed to be said. Right now its only big enough for 2 warframe bodys. perfect to protect me from projectiles while ressing someone but as written in Rebbeca's post its useless to team mates all the time because of its small size.

 

It is very hard to find position behind the shield if youre shooting at things even harder to be safe.

 

Right now you need 2-3 shields to actually protect you from projectiles. Unless youre in a corridor.

 

Napalms and explosions go straight through it.

 

Now I've given it more thought comparing it to frosts snow globe is an exageration and making shield bigger is needed.

[HansJurgen]

Trinity:

 

-Blessing:  Damage immunity is now based on the percentage of health healed (ie: healing 90% health will grant 90% immunity).  This should make the use of Blessing more reactive, greatly benefiting players that pay attention and monitor party health to maximize its effectiveness.

 

Hello Rebecca.

 

1. Do you know who's health is the immunity based off? The caster's, the entire team's, or the player with the lower health? Or, will it function on an individual basis:

 

- I am undamaged, no heal, no immunity

- team member 1 damaged for 10%, healed for 10%, the 10% healed is immune to damage.

- team member 2, damaged for 50%, healed 50%, 50% of HP is immune to damage

 

2. Form your post, it seem that immunity will be restricted to the amount of HP healed. If I took 2 HP damage and use blessing, I get healed for 2 HP and I am guaranteed that this amount will be immune to damage until the ability wears off? Is this correct?

 

3. Previously, blessing also helped regenerate shields. Will blessing still regenerate shields?

 

For instance, if someone takes damage to the shields, and blessing is cast, does this mean that only the part of shields which has been regenerated will become immune to damage? Or will the equivalent percent of HP become immune to damage too?

 

Or, rather, HP would still be vulnerable to damage, thus if a target receives poison damage, it may die/fall down and bleed in spite of blessing (and a part of their shields intact)?

 

If this is the case, will this mean I will have to very carefully monitor the HP of my team mates to avoid casting blessing while their shields are damaged rather than their health. Making the mistake to cast blessing that will merely affect their shields means that I have just wasted my ultimate and I now need to wait for the cooldown timer?

 

It looks like a lot of effort in my opinion (compared to other ultimates) and it seems to me it will be very circumstantial and gimmicky (even for a secondary ability, let alone an ultimate). It does not seem to provide any real benefits to my team, and I am better off being selfish about its use, mod it for high duration (instead of low duration, for lower cooldown) and only focus on my self, as described below.

 

4. I am not sure I understand how this change will prevent players from shooting their feet.

 

For instance, a player can wait for enemy targets to cause him severe damage, then cast blessing, then cast link and shoot his feet until the two abilities expire. This will be possible since the healed damage will grant damage immunity for the duration of blessing. Or is this intended by design? To me, using blessing like this is bar none the most powerful ability in the game, and it puts even mprime to shame.

 

5. According to how the new blessing is supposed to work, it requires the team to take massive damage to be of any use, and I do not think I am exaggerating when I say it encourages a trinity player to wish his team mates took damage to have a reason to cast their ultimate. Otherwise, this ultimate serves no purpose. Good team play requires the players to perform well and avoid taking unnecessary damage.

 

The way blessing will be changed requires the players to be individualistic and reckless for this ultimate to serve any purpose. This in turn, goes against the spirit of team play, in my opinion.

 

I do not see a reason to have a frame on my team who has an ultimate (not a first ability or anything of niche use) that requires me to play badly to be in any way good or effective. Even so, if I took massive damage to justify the use of blessing, odds are about 1 in 2 that I will be dead/down before the casting is complete (casting time is quite long).

 

I am sorry for asking so many questions. The new blessing mechanic is a bit confusing to me.

Edited May 13, 2014 by HansJurgen

[holyicon]

Hello Rebecca.

 

1. Do you know who's health is the immunity based off? The caster's, the entire team's, or the player with the lower health? Or, will it function on an individual basis:

 

- I am undamaged, no heal, no immunity

- team member 1 damaged for 10%, healed for 10%, the 10% healed is immune to damage.

- team member 2, damaged for 50%, healed 50%, 50% of HP is immune to damage

 

2. Form your post, it seem that immunity will be restricted to the amount of HP healed. If I took 2 HP damage and use blessing, I get healed for 2 HP and I am guaranteed that this amount will be immune to damage until the ability wears off? Is this correct?

 

3. Previously, blessing also helped regenerate shields. Will blessing still regenerate shields?

 

For instance, if someone takes damage to the shields, and blessing is cast, will that part of shields which has been regenerated become immune to damage, while HP would still be vulnerable to damage, thus if a target receives poison damage, it may die/fall down and bleed in spite of blessing?

 

4. I am not sure I understand how will this change stop players from shooting their feet as a mechanic. For instance, a player can wait for enemy targets to cause him severe damage, then cast blessing, then cast link and shoot his feet until the abilities expire. This will be possible since the healed damage will be immune to further damage for the duration of blessing. Or is this intended by design?

 

I am sorry for asking so many questions. The new blessing mechanic is a bit confusing to me.

 

"The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood."--Alexander Haig

[(PSN)friedricetheman]

One question : how would power duration affect the new blessings?

[Arkezuli]

I feel as though the proposed Blessing changes are deeply flawed.

 

 

Trinity has always been a team player and her abilities are a clear representation of that. I don't think the proposed Blessing changes encourages that specific teamwork though, as it forces Trinity to pick and choose who to reward and who to punish with an awful duration timer.

 

Lets take a look at an example:

 

We have a Rhino, Ash, Excalibur, and Trinity. Rhino, being the tanky frame that he is, is still at full health. Ash is at full health too, but Excalibur is having a little trouble, 90% of his health is missing and he needs Trinity to cast blessing. Trinity will cast a blessing that will fully heal everyone, but only Excalibur will get the brunt of all that benefit from Trinity's Blessing. Rhino, Ash, and Trinity are now totally vulnerable, without a means of protection because of Blessing's cooldown.

 

This does not synergize for good teamplay at all. You should not punish those who are at full health.

 

I propose a much similar solution that has the best of the old Blessing and the new proposed Blessing.

 

When you cast Blessing, everyone would get healed as per usual, but the damage immunity needs to scale with the amount of health that the player has at the current moment and be calculated in real time. This way, everyone would be able to enjoy the benefits of Trinity's blessing without being flat out immune to damage, but not entirely invincible either.

 

Lets see an example of this:

 

We, again, have a Rhino, Ash, Excalibur, and Trinity. Rhino and Ash are at 100% health, but Excalibur only has 50% of his health remaining and he needs Trinity to cast blessing. Trinity casts Blessing, instant heals for everyone, but none of you are immune to damage at first. Excalibur is still in a bit of trouble, and now the enemies are chewing away at his health. At 90%, he has 10% damage immunity. At 50%, he has 50% damage immunity. At 30%, he has 70% damage immunity, and so on. Everyone in the party would be able to benefit from this. Of course, to keep players from being absolutely invincible, this damage immunity has a maximum capacity on how much immunity it can give you based on your health. This should scale and update based on the player's health for the duration of Blessing. In this state, the players with full health won't get punished for not taking damage.

 

I think that this is the best of both worlds for Blessing.

 

 

 

Another suggestion would be to doctor it similar to Frost's Snow Globe. Make a short temporary invulnerability period for X amount of seconds before damage immunities.

 

TL;DR: Make Blessing's damage immunity update and scale based on real time calculations of the player's health, but place a maximum capacity for damage immunity as to not make players invincible at the lowest possible health. Make the ability work for all teammates across the board, not to have it so one benefits and the others suffer.

^ This.

[holyicon]

One question : how would power duration affect the new blessings?

 

We have to assume the duration of Blessing is not changed, as no mention of a change was made.

Therefore you can potentially have a 0% damage reduction bubble floating on yourself, while being unable to heal.

[CrimsonCrown]

But will Nyx's Absorb be now determined by continuity still?

Because if it still will and there's energy decaying too, then it sounds awful.

[Darkjackal_2031]

This is great and all, but what about frost? Ice wave needs a knockback/ragdoll, and nobody will use freeze unless it has an AOE that lets us freeze multiple enemies. 

Edited May 13, 2014 by Darkjackal_2031

[HexCaliber]

Folks are getting carried away with the mention of being able to toggle certain abilities.

 

I suspect this toggle is only there to permit the user to end the ability prematurely, and not, as some seem to imagine, allowing players to run around with an ability permanently on until their energy pool drains. They simply scale energy drain so that at full duration it consumes the full charge that is typically required for an ability of that tier, end it early, and only use as much energy as was required up until that point. The maximum duration for a single cast of the ability will still be determined by mods and mod level as it is now.

 

Anything more would lead to silly overpowered frame abilities that upsets the entire games balance.

Edited May 13, 2014 by HexCaliber

[Llyssa]

I'd rather like it if bladestorm had a toggle like the other "locked animation" ults.

 

Sometimes I'm bladestorming because I want everything dead now. Sometimes I'm bladestorming because I need a chance to regen or escape something.

 

While shortening the duration is useful in many cases, if you were using bladestorm defensively, this isn't so good.

 

Example scenario: Battling lephantis, I get hit, losing my shields and taking near-lethal damage. If I bladestorm the infested lephantis spawns, it buys me a short duration where I'm unable to be harmed, allowing me to regen. If bladestorm instead ends swiftly(he doesn't spawn that many enemies), instead of getting my shields recharged, I have a few dead infested that could have been ignored, and low shields, and a boss who's still rather immune to bladestorm who still has deadly projectiles.

 

I think, perhaps, the best way to handle it, perhaps, is have the clones be free, but non-standard.

 

That is, make it so that activating bladestorm works like it normally does, but clicking to activate it repeatedly once it has started begins spawning the clones.

 

In this way, if I want bladestorm over with quickly, I can begin generatingthe free clones to help speed up the process, and if I actually wanted to buy myself breathing room, I have all I wanted.

 

Further, because the player could do this at any time before bladestorm ends, they could get rather precise control over exactly how long it lasts--if you were buying breathing room, but suddenly, say, an ally needs reviving, you could then speed up the process once you knew you'd be safe, and still have enough time to rescue them.

 

This would be far more useful than merely cutting down the time of the process, since, sometimes, the time that process takes is actually what you were looking for.

[Noxraconis]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this change. XD

[(PSN)Crackle2012]

Ash's teleport triggering a finisher is amazing... I love this!!!  and a bleed proc for bladestorm and Shuriken!  omg... What about bonus dmg added to bladestorm while ash is invisible?  Will this still remain since it's techincally clones of him now?  -- come to think of it-- I can rarely see the dmg numbers from Ash's bladestorm because of how fast he switches targets.. I usually only see the number for the affinity the mobs are giving me.  

 

Did invis dmg multiplier ever actually improve bladestorms damage?  I kind of always felt like it did.

[(PSN)Crackle2012]

Ice wave needs a knockback/ragdoll, and nobody will use freeze unless it has an AOE that lets us freeze multiple enemies. 

 

I second that-- not necessarily these exact things.. and I honestly think Ice wave is pretty nice with its force slow proc.. but Freeze definitely needs love-- bad..  I am actually enjoying frost again post U13 on PS4 due to the snowglobe buff! :-)

[Llyssa]

+1 I don't foresee happy players with these changes.

I have noticed wormhole acting erratically for a while now too while were on the topic of Nova and her powers.

Part of why they can't actually fix wormhole directly is because they changed the way the physics engine works, and it relied on something from the old version. Apparently it was otherwise superflous, as nobody has noticed anything else from it.

[Denzine]

My initial reaction below.

 

Trinity:

Blessing without invulnerability is obsoleted by Desecrate, Reckoning, Life Strike, and team/personal health packs. It's not a reactionary power because of how absurdly fast this game moves and how long it takes to cast Blessing plus lag between host and clients. Every silly tactic Trinity is capable of relies on Blessing granting invulnerability so in that sense it works out well enough but, because those tricks were the main reason people used her, she's going to see a serious drop in use.

 

Energy Vampire dropping everything at once on mob death sounds good to me. It'll help out low-level teams who don't yet have all the fancy-shmancy efficiency mods. Unfortunately even without this change it's ripe for abuse. See Banshee's Sound Quake entry.

 

addendum: Well of Life needs a mechanics change. It's still pointlessly difficult to intentionally use.

 

Banshee:

 

Silence doesn't do enough, even with this change. All it does is replicate the suppressor mods. It doesn't block or diminish line-of-sight, it doesn't highlight enemies on the map, it does little that's actually important to stealth. Keep the centered-on-self behavior and fold it into Sonar.

 

Sound Quake will never need to stop with Trinity spamming Vampire, or with sufficient energy consumables or sufficient Energy Siphon(or sufficient orbs that Carrier picks up, and so on). It's much more convenient and powerful, but I don't think it's a good idea for game balance or fun.

 

Nyx:

 

Absorb as a toggle sounds extremely convenient to me, but for similar reasons to Sound quake it will probably be incredibly OP.

 

P.S. Please make Psychic Bolts and Mind Control worth slotting, tia.

 

Volt:

 

Larger Volt Shield sounds good to me, just don't go overboard and make it the new old-Snowglobe.

 

Hydroid:

 

Undertow

I'm going to start an ODD, press puddle, and go to sleep. I'll tell you how it goes.

 

Ash - (coming around a few more corners, likely to follow the rest of the above changes at a later week):

 

I don't think a bleed proc is going to save Shuriken. The fire proc DOT doesn't help Fireball, either, and that's a much more powerful aoe skill.

 

Teleport still uses the finicky target system so it's kinda held back regardless but allowing it to scale with weapon damage makes it potentially very useful. I look forward to trying it out.

 

Blade Storm should be way better with faster and more reliable damage, the bleed proc is just (largely irrelevant, due to short mob lifespans) gravy.

 

edit: words words

Edited May 13, 2014 by Denzine

[FoxFX]

Ash's Smoke Screen should be at best a party skill that can make other players invisible that are nearby him. It makes sense seeing that compared to Loki, Ash's invisible duration is shorter.

 

Now as for Excalibur's Radial Blind, I know some people might hate me for this but...I feel it is kinda too powerful since enemies do not react to loud attacks when under Radial Blind's ability. I feel that enemies that are blinded should have the ability to react aggressively if they "hear" an attack nearby.

 

Saryn's Venom skill could possibly need a change to something that acts like a swarm of venomous insects that first attacks a targeted enemy and does the Viral damage, but after that enemy dies, the swarm moves to the next enemy then the next. But to actually make this possible, Venom's damage should be buffed if done this way.

[HollowFrame]

Here are some ideas I have in mind which I hope could help somehow..

Buff Excal's SuperJump a bit. I guess it would be cool if we get a little buff with every skill we cast while we're airborne. Like dealing headshots with Radial Javelin. Or having Radial Blind's range increased.

Saryn's Contagion too. I think it would be nice to have some effects splashed within the initial targets AoE. Effects could be +%melee damage if the target gets hit within 5-8 seconds after the initial target's death.. Or it could be %poison damage splashed from the initial target.

Volt's Speed Melee Buff. If I remember my Physics class correctly, faster stuff generate more force. Iono. I maybe wrong, but please give Volt Speed some melee buff. lol

Rhino Roar. I seriously have no complaints about Rhino. I think he's been balanced long time ago. But I do wish we can change the Roar Aura Color accordingly to our energy color. Bright Pink Roar Aura would look fun.. And energy trail for Roared units too please. Please!!

Loki's Radial Disarm.. Obviously useless against infested. So maybe this can like do some damage reduction to Disarmed (already) melee units.. Or maybe slow them a bit..

Trinity Blessing.. I may get hated for this, but here's a new idea. Blessing works like before, fully heals everyone after cast, stays for a duration. What's new? Now, only Trinity gets invincibility and %damage reduction (maybe around 80-90%damage reduction), but all damage taken by her allies would be shared with her. For example, a direct shot towards Trinity would NOT damage her, but she will share %damage taken by an ally (yes, this is what her %damage reduction is for).

P.S. Buff Trinity's bewbs please.

I'm really happy about Ash skill changes. I hate Ash. Maybe this time I can learn to love him. Thanks DE. 

[StealthyCARNAGE]

I think Rhino's "Charge" and Excalibur's "Everything" should also be on the list. :V

[djentlemenBehold]

Ash is getting Kage Bunshin no Jutsu? Sweet.

[Haiova]

How will efficiency mods work with toggle on/off abilities?

Edited May 13, 2014 by Haiova

[FoxFX]

Do you think Excalibur's Slash Dash should scale with the melee weapon he is using?

Edited May 13, 2014 by FoxFX

[Lorche]

I just kinda curious about some things (which some may already asked)

 

- How's Trinity future Blessing will work actually? I get the basic gist of "change total god-mode" to "situational heavy armor" on the new Blessing.

But how's the future Blessing will function in battle? Did it pool the total health loss at the moment Blessing activated, divide it into player's total max health, and convert it into percentage of damage reduction? Or the Blessing's damage reduction will be different on each players depending on their health damage the moment Blessing activated? Kinda curious on that part

 

- I'd suspect this will apply to future Banshee's Sound Quake first. But, now that the door to toggle-skills are opened, I might as well ask this. How's the interaction between duration mods and the future toggle-skills would be? Because, if the duration are negated on the future toggle-skills, there could be future abuse of this new skill system. Especially with Fleeting Expertise and Overextended combined. With that, you could create a stupidly wide CC skiills with cheap energy cost, which the only downside are penalty on duration (which will not affect the skill, at all), and reduction to damage (which nobody care, because CC is more important on higher level)

 

- Nice work with Ash there. Now that Ash learn Kage Bunshin no Jutsu how to duplicte himself and use his clones on his future Bladestorm, his ult might become more effective. But that makes me curious. How's the Melee Combo Counter works for the future Ash's Bladestorm? Did it count per hit (like the current Bladestorm), or consider all of the initial hit as one counter?

Edited May 13, 2014 by Lorche

[AuroraSonicBoom]

Trinity nerf sounds okay, Banshee's Silence is still useless but I hope just an interim step for a later buff. Toggleable SQ I do like, not because of the toggle option but the fact that the ability no longer has a fixed duration. Looking forward to the Nova nerf most, though, as that along with Rhino's broken speed boost helmet is the main factor I can't enjoy online play any longer.

 

I'd also like to remind you to do something about the helmet stats for older players, either removing them, nerfing them or unlocking them for all frames. The way you chose to solve the issue made it worse, creating an even larger gap between players with access to them and those without, while having done nothing to the problem of some stat combos breaking the balance of certain warframes and uplifting them into godlike(perfect, no drawbacks) status.

 

 

How will efficiency mods work with toggle on/off abilities?

 

I trust that duration mods for Absorb and SQ won't affect them anymore(wasn't the case with SQ anyway), meaning infinite duration limited by energy drain only. That frees up a mod slot in some builds on Nyx, which is quite nice.

Edited May 13, 2014 by AuroraSonicBoom