Warframe Which Most Meaningfully Changes Gameplay?

[TemetNosce]

I play Mag, and am nearing the cap with her, but the more I play the more I feel... Underwhelmed doesn't really go far enough. Excepting Crush, her abilities simply don't justify the cost, in addition to being niche. Not just the majority of my damage/effectiveness comes from other areas ignoring my frame, but near all of it. About the most significant thing about Mag for me at this point are her shield/recharge ratings.

I'd intended to build an Ash to fix these problems, but then I began looking into the Warframes, and the more I read, the more I find myself wondering what the point is. It seems as though on the whole Warframes themselves are poorly integrated into the game, with the abilities feeling especially disconnected.

I suppose the point here is that I'm wondering if there's a Warframe any of you would suggest which feels more fully integrated, with a suite of abilities that actually see frequent and impactful use?

[SubductionX]

If you want a Warframe that really uses its abilities, I can recommend Rhino. I leveled him to 30 and as far as I know, his abilities are pretty fun to use (Iron skin + Rhino stomp and slash your way through enemies). With the Flow mod and Energy Siphon artifact you'll never run out of energy thus you're near invincible.

But that's not exactly the point^^ The thing is, you'll have to upgrade his abilities (Rhino charge especially because it's pretty much worthless on rank 1) and I think it needs to be supercharged to use Stomp (?), but when you've extended his abilities, they are very powerful and you have to use them frequently to survive.

Integration-wise: I can't really tell objectively, but to me Rhino seems fairly integrated, but hear out some of the other opinions ;)

[Unibot]

I do not really understand what you are asking for..

Are you looking for a more lore friendly abilities on warframe ?

Do you desire a warframe that relies solely on abilities ?

Are you in search of a more ninja like warframe ?

Seriously I do not understand you...

Edited April 10, 2013 by Unibot

[Ravtek]

I see your concern, and yeah, it's been an issue. Many of the abilities of the warframes become semi-obsolete end-game. The only warframe I can think of that utilizes more than 1 or 2 skills would be trinity, energy drain, link and blessing. Many of the skills of warframes needs tweaking. All the warframes definitely have potential to become more unique, it's really up to the dev's on when they want to work on them, among the many other tasks they must juggle. Hopefully, if given time, they'll address this issue.

I think what he's getting at is that many of the warframes have only 1 or 2 truly notable skills to write home about.

He wants a warframe where all of their skills are utilized frequently, this is what he meant by integrated, as in the warframe's skill were actually well thought out in terms of gameplay practicality.

Edited April 10, 2013 by Ravtek

[FlanShark]

Good OP. As you say there are remarkably few abilities that really change gameplay. Not that it isn't fun ubering things from time to time but...

It's tough though because at this point there are so many totally worthless abilities, and literally no suit with 4 useful abilities... the amount of redesigning is painful. I hope they bite the bullet and do it though.

To the post above me: disagreed about contagion. It should make you immune to poison damage and last longer. The only thing in the game you can't melee to death at present is toxic ancients, the 2 frames that can already, do it via going invulnerable, I dunno... would suck to make meleeing thru a horde even easier and still be unable to melee toxics :)

Big problem with discussing this whole issue is that its hard to keep it a manageable size because at least half of all skills need tweaking at least :/

Probably best to split it up into "<warframe> Skill Overhaul thread". I was thinking of starting a couple when I was happy with my suggestions; most of the ones that get posted seem not to take into account the difficulty of implementation and are just thinking about the suit's aesthetic theme.

[FlanShark]

Oh, and I second the recommendation of rhino as a suit with reasonably good power-based gameplay. Radial blast is garbage but the other 3 are nice. #1 gives you a movement skill to combine with the wallrunning etc. #2... is god mode, nuff said, and #4 is crowd control that works on bosses and elites~

[firequill]

Nyx.

 

All useful all the time.

 

 

Trinity if you're into support, basically giving others infinte energy, godly on bosses, not to mention the ult.

 

 

the rest seem to have one or two powers that stand out while the rest go unused.

 

I use mag myself and the only skill i use pretty much every mission is crush, the pull only ses use if there's shieldmobs around.

Shield drain thingy is useless to me, attractor as well as it seems to make headshotting impossible.

[Sagonene]

Loki. Yes, disarm is terribad vs. infected. But decoy is huge for the cheap. Invis makes stealth possible/easier and gives your melee a nice boost. Swapaport is situational but it can give you perfect position control when you use it regularly. Disarm can turn a Grinder or Corpus defense mission into an infected gathering to nuke.

Loki isn't offensive, it makes your offensive strategic.

Sagonene

[Sapphyrite]

Seconding the Nyx advice.

 

While most other warframes have comparably interchangeable abilities (Think Ash VS Excalibur VS Volt VS Ember, all doing AoE damage, with fairly mild variations of flavor), Nyx possesses a couple of unique abilities. A foolproof mind-control/2s stun on any boss. A homing attack circumnavigating cover (A little underwhelming, I suppose). A 8~second-long invulnerability, absorbing all damage directed at you and refracting it in AoE, great as a panic button or to save a teammate-objective.

 

And then there's Chaos, which deserves a separate mention. No other ability turns the tables so drastically. Grineer, Corpus or Infested alike, only the Stalker is immune to its effects. All else will fight like puppets while you sit back and enjoy the show. Only thing I'd like is for her to take out a glass of whiskey and lean into an armchair, chuckling evilly.

[FiendFyre]

I actually like Frost quite a bit, most of the abilities are pretty useful for something or the other. Freeze is good on bosses, Ice wave does some decent damage to a couple enemies at a time, Snow Globe is great for defense missions, and Avalanche is overall good for basically anything including crowd control

[RedMonarch]

I've been playing Volt and at first I thought the occasional lightning bolt was okay but hardly useful, and the only real power I had been using was overload when I get swarmed, works wells on all but infested of course. However, as higher levels came up, I found myself relying on electrical shield or speed in order to stay alive, no matter what mods or weapons I use. Speed has also been useful for those last second revives, I saved a few friends that way.

[Archistopheles]

I'm a newbie Mag too, but I've actually figured her out.

 

At low ranks (1-11) abilities are worthless. I was using +sheilds and +health while I figured out the basics of this game.

 

Pull was the first ability I really started to enjoy. Is it situational? Of course. You don't want to pull a toxic ancient into your team, but it still is a nice knockdown/stun.

 

Crush? Its a given.

 

Shield? It's only 150 points at level 1 (They really need to indicate that in game) So if you get it to level 2-3, its actually quite amazing for bosses and Grineer elite.

 

Bullet attractor is similar. It's great for bosses, but the level 1 version is pretty lame.

 

Tl;dr The abilities of the Mag are great once you get some of the higher level stuff

[Darzk]

I'm a newbie Mag too, but I've actually figured her out.

 

At low ranks (1-11) abilities are worthless. I was using +sheilds and +health while I figured out the basics of this game.

 

Pull was the first ability I really started to enjoy. Is it situational? Of course. You don't want to pull a toxic ancient into your team, but it still is a nice knockdown/stun.

 

Crush? Its a given.

 

Shield? It's only 150 points at level 1 (They really need to indicate that in game) So if you get it to level 2-3, its actually quite amazing for bosses and Grineer elite.

 

Bullet attractor is similar. It's great for bosses, but the level 1 version is pretty lame.

 

Tl;dr The abilities of the Mag are great once you get some of the higher level stuff

__________________________________

 

Shield Polarize

Shield drain is 350 damage at max rank, making it somewhat useful for heavily shielded bosses and heavy units, but especially useful for melee builds, as the innate armor pierce of charge attacks has no benefit against shields - however a charge attack or two still does about the same amount as this 50 energy ability. Draining a shield of a gunner and pulling it to your feet, with a melee build, usually results in a kill before they can do their knockdown. You could also do this with any ranged weapon, although you'll take more damage.

 

The best utility for shield drain comes from the GIFTING of shields to friendly targets. Can be really helpful with boss fights, but is incredibly hard to use with no shield indicator for friendly players. Upcoming UI updates (I hope) will help make this much more useful and easier to use in the future.

 

Of note, Shield drain can be used to give shields to Defense targets, giving it some damage protection while you're running towards the enemies hitting it. I have also seen it grant health to a defense target, but I'm fairly certain this was a glitch.

 

I would only bring shield drain on defense missions or certain boss levels.

 

Pull

Pull at first seems lackluster, and the range is good enough at base rank that it never needs to be updated, IMO. Currently it's use against shield Grineer is lackluster, as you can headshot the shield guys while standing right in front of them. If they get updated to hold their shields a little higher this situational skill will become much more useful.

 

Pull can also be used to move friendly teammates out of dangerous situations - even if they're downed. You can pull a teammate behind cover and then revive them. You can also pull teammates through laser walls, up onto crates while staggerd, out of crawler stuns, and towards the extraction if they're slow/being stubborn/being loot @#&*(s.

 

Bullet Attractor

Currently not worth the points on the frame or the energy spent to cast it. The only practical use atm is to prevent the mob it is casted on from using ranged attacks, which you can also do simply by moving into melee range. Using this ability on a boss or heavy unit will actually DECREASE the damage done to it, as it is no longer possible to get headshots.

 

This ability needs to be hotfixed to either focus the attracted bullets towards critical locations (this may make it too powerful) or ONLY attract bullets that are going to miss the target, thus allowing headshots to occur. Currently as it stands, even hitting a headshot 1/3 times and missing 2/3rds is better than 3 body shots on bosses/armored targets.

 

Edit: Oh, forgot this. Bullet Attractor + Excalibur's Radial Javelin activated within the attraction field = 12k armor ignoring damage to bosses. Pretty awesome, but requires more coordination than many pugs have. Playing with a group with an Excal makes this ability a priority for boss fights.

 

Crush

This is one of the best ultimates, IMO. It ignores cover, goes through walls, does great damage to targets, and stuns and lifts them for the duration of the attack, reducing incoming damage (not sure if yo're invul while casting or not) and allowing teammates to focus heavies for stunlock-kills. I'm also not sure if it either hits a limited number of targets or if targets running into the area of influence after it's been casted are immune. If the former, the number of targets is quite large, the latter possibly all ultis work like this. Although teammates can steal kills, that's their fault, not the abilities. Its basically a combination of Rhino and Volts Ultis, but isnt ineffective against Ancients and imo is better than both.

 

 

Base Stats

Mag also is tied for the highest base shield capacity making redirection/fast deflection more effective than some other support units. While the base power pool is the more default 100, Streamline is generally more beneficial than Flow anyways and you generally don't need to get two ultis off in a row.

Edited April 12, 2013 by Darzk

[Archistopheles]

Thanks Darzk. I feel better educated.

[EagleRise]

Excal is really useful, if you play aggressively that is.

Slash dash - double as an attack and escape ability, with its 25 energy cost, you can go in and out of a group of enemies and most if not all of them, also could be used as a super attack if you charge into a group of enemies with it, and then use Radial jav.

this ability shins on its last rank, having a descent rang and damage (rang mods can make it better).

its also a great mobility skill, and will allow you to skip pits as is can be used in midair.

Radial blind - many say its a defensive ability, I think its aggressive really, Excal has 150 energy when maxed, exactly what you need to use this to stop every on in their place (keeping them out of cover) and then use Radial Jav to take every one down (a good methode to stop a charging ancient and killing it, same for multiple charging ancients).

if you'l have it for the combo, its first rank will suit you, as you don't need it to last long and work for a great range.

Super jump - Excals most overlooked ability, most never use it, some even keep it out of their roster, but when used correctly its really useful (still, upgrading it should be your last priority), it will allow you to get out of trick situations, skip enemy groups, and will provide you accesses to areas that otherwise will be inaccessible.

Radial jav - your standard one-click-many-die ability, nothing really beyond it, keep in mind that it CAN miss tho.

very useful on its own and in a combo with other abilitys.

also can be used pretty much everywhere, including midair (so even a super jump+Radial jav combo can be done).

Edited April 12, 2013 by EagleRise

[SlyBoots]

Radial blast is garbage

 

they just need to look into adding (part of) modded (in this case melee) weapon damage to these kinds of abilities and damage scaling could pose less of a problem.

[Cleesus]

I would also say Nyx, I love this warframe, all of its abilities are useful and chaos is just godly. The only skill i barely use is the mind bolts and thats because it is underpowered.

[Mogar]

I thought of the abilities more as something that supports you rather than being your main source of damage. But I did find that with Loki and Rhino (both at 30) that those 2 Waframes definitely has abilities that can be used any time and back to back. Loki for Switch teleport + Decoy. Invisibility is amazing too, especially the fact you can still attack cloaked. Rhino for, well almost all his abilities. Though mostly that Iron Skin saves my life so many times.

[AzyWng]

Sorry for being off topic, but one player said that Ember is his least favorite warframe, due to the lack of quality abilities. He said that "Fireball doesn't know what it wants to be" because all its stats were too low...

[TemetNosce]

Thanks to everyone who posted here, I haven't responded prior to this because I'm one of the people who when navigating to the forum get sent to the homepage (I finally got here through a link provided by another player, which is odd since even Google links weren't getting me here and clearing my cache didn't help).

 

Regardless, after running into a Nyx in game I'm currently leaning towards trying her, since she seems incredible for defence missions.

[Tigercloud]

Loki is definitely a gamechanger. Decoy lets you get enemies off your back or your teammates, protect the objective, or teleport to new places (you can switch with your decoy!). Invisibility, no contest, gives you immunity to non-AoE damage, autocrits, it's escape, attack, CC (when jump meleeing), everything. Switch teleport... I haven't maxed my streamline mod yet, nor do I have flow, so this seems a bit costly to me, but it lets you shift the battlefield entirely. Enemies up above you? Teleport up there and snipe them down. Defense mission and a big group appears? Switch with one, let your teammates down it while you go invisible and tear up the squad. Radial disarm's only weak point in Loki's arsenal is that it doesn't do squat against Infested. But do it on a defense mission with overwhelming groups of Corpus or Grineer, put down a decoy, and go to town.

 

I'm still a noob, but I can already see how interesting Loki is. I know people have criticism for different frames, but I think Loki is one of the really solid builds. Just think I need more power to fully use him strategically.

[CaligoIllioneus]

What we need is a massive energy cost reduction for those single target damaging skills like Shock, Psychic Bolts, Fireball, etc.

 

Psychic Bolts costs 50 energy which is an exaggeration, it should cost 20-25. Shock and Fireball and that kind of ability should cost 10-15 energy.

 

Yes, this would make you able to spam them more. But...is is that wrong, when shooting with your gun tends to always be better?

 

Making them less of a hassle to cast would make these abilities more useful. I do not use them not only because they're at best equal to actually shooting the enemies and often worse, but because they punish you by taking away precious energy that you could be saving for the abilities that actually matter.

 

Buffing the damage of these skills isn't really the way, because they will always suck against bosses, and even if they one shot normal enemies they wouldn't be used as the energy cost is too high, and the enemies die really fast anyways.

[Nykxx]

Most Frames dont have 4 generally usefull abilitys right now. But the DEVs stated that they want to introduce more Skills later in the game wich gives you a bigger choice and more customization. Altough many frames are pretty unique in their abilitys and the DEVs made a good job of giving each one a purpose. There always comes a situation where one Skill comes in really handy and only your frame is able to pull it off. Like the mentioned psych bolts wich are pretty underpowered. But they fire around cover. So that grineer sniper hiding all the time becomes your gunfodder and nobody else can do that at the moment.

 

It might not be necessary to kill that Grineer in cover, but it still comes in handy. The main Focus is still a Shooter/Melee gameplay and skills are only there to add that little extra touch, not like skills ins MMO's where they define the gameplay.