ash underwhelming? (mained loki beforehand)

[EroShinigami]

Also, lets make sure the devs see this topic, I think the "Ash needs some buffing" was already discussed before but this one saw more activity, so I really hope they see our ideas.

[Killsion]

May want to make a new thread in the new Warframe Feedback subforum or get this moved.

[EroShinigami]

So much good points have been made, better just move there.

[Ronyn]

It concerns me to hear that ASH is considered messed up because I've been wanting to buy him next.

Now I dont know whether I should forget about or if his skills will be looked at soon.

[Eisen]

I have a lvl 27 ash now, with all the skills and mostly defense mods.

I was maining a Excalibur Prime, but i sold him because I'm supersmart, so i started with ash, and my impressions are...

shuriken: wtf is this? a small, slow moving projectile thats not even autoaimed, that is good for killing normal mobs (assuming you don't have bullets, your melee is blunt and there are no stones around to throw) but won't dent a bigger one at all, compared to Excalibur's slash dash (that oneshots everything in its path) and it feels like a joke, like a skill you use on the last enemy of the room if you fancy weird wall decorations (and assuming you won't miss).

it needs to be more effective, like it ricochets on every enemy on your line of sight, or goes through enemies in a straight path, or it could work as a sticky grenade, you throw it into an enemy or the ground and it explodes, I don't know, something, as of now I have absolutely no reason to use it (i main a sniper rifle)

smoke screen: nein, until you level this up it's only useful if you use it amidst a bunch of enemies so you can stagger them and run, and even so, your stealth will go away so fast that the mobs won't react and will point at you saying "yeah, dude, you're right there"

it should blind the enemies around you, or give you a bonus dmg on steath attacks, or even push enemies away as you use it

teleport: really? 75 energy to give a mob the privilege of club me with their stocks? why would i want to teleport INTO a mob? i have an axe, even if i start attacking as soon as i land, I won't hit anything but the ground, and the enemy i just teleported into will be dealing damage at the same time.

why not make the target explode as i land? or put me behind them, you know, at attack range? its only good for trolling a bunch of mobs, use teleport, smoke screen, laugh like an idiot and then die.

Bladestorm: the only skill worth using, and it's like a lotto, either you win and kill every living thing in the room, or you stop attacking in front of a firing squad, or you get stuck in walls.

i get the omnislash thing, but it should be more reliable, like a fixed number of attacks at a fixed cost.

also, this WF needs a lot of tweaking in energy management, you run the levels full energy waiting for a good chance to use bladestorm, or you're starving.

[Konnstruct]

I totally agree with this, I want Ash to be the sneaky ninja assassin badass he is advertised to be.

[Ronyn]

Shuriken is meant to be a deadly straight on attack so it should either go through a whole line of enemies or do be able to one shot even the heaviest target.

Smoke bomb is supposed to be used for confusion to either attack or escape so its effects shoud last longer.

Teleport is meant to get you close to enemies for melee so it should be cheap to cast and stun the target long enough to ensure you hit them first.

Blade Storm should send you fliting around then just return you back to where you were standing when you cast it that way you wont have to worry about the ranbdomness of where you land.

Seriously until I head about all these problems I figured that was how everything worked....

[kazen]

even though we have a warframe subforum, i'm just going to add my suggestions.

windwill shuriken: i saw some people mention dark sector's glaive, it's basically a large boomerang. aim and it will travel straight ahead but it will always return to your hands so you change to different locations for more possible targets. the amount of damage, how fast it travels, and distance it can travel will probably be an issue. also, what sort of objects it can pass through before it stops completely is up to you. oh, be sure to add the catch animation if you pull it off successfully.

smoke screen: make it so other warframes inside the smoke become invisible too! i know some might think this can be overpowered. change the energy cost to 75 and tweak the duration of the invisiblity. i don't know if this will make a big difference but remove or keep the stun.

teleport: change this to 50 energy. make it like loki's decoy, where you can teleport anywhere within line of sight. the range of where you can teleport can be the same as before. this will make an excellent combo with the windmill shuriken.

blade storm: don't have it but from what i hear, it has 2 problems. 1) you can take damage when using this skill. 2) you never end up in the same spot when you activate it.

[Josslyn]

+1 like

[EroShinigami]

windwill shuriken: i saw some people mention dark sector's glaive, it's basically a large boomerang. aim and it will travel straight ahead but it will always return to your hands so you change to different locations for more possible targets. the amount of damage, how fast it travels, and distance it can travel will probably be an issue. also, what sort of objects it can pass through before it stops completely is up to you. oh, be sure to add the catch animation if you pull it off successfully.

Now that would be nice. Make its damage lower than the Slash Dash from Excalibur and add that effect, I could see a lot of cool looking fights with a skill like that.

[MaximumComfort]

After seeing Ash in the loading screen, I had my heart set on him. Was the first warframe I farmed and crafted. I was severely disappointed when I got to play him and his skills just didn't seem to flow.

I dont like shuriken as a skill at all. I think the damage is unrewarding if you do manage to hit an enemy who is moving around with such a small hitbox. Even if it was easier to hit and did more damage, I still dont think it would be fun to use/fit the warframe well. It would just be a less cooler version of excaliburs main ability, damage in a straight line, only you dont follow it to the end point.

Keeping him as much the way he is now, I'd put his teleport as his main ability. Only it would cost 15 energy, teleports you behind the enemy, and increases the damage of your next attack vs that enemy, setting up for extra damage back slashes/HEKs to the spine and giving good maneuverability.

Smoke screen is good as is, albeit when leveled up.

In lieu of teleports old spot, I'd replace it with a skill that fires out multiple shurikens all around Ash in random directions, the skill doing more damage at closer range where enemies are able to be hit by more than one shuriken.

Blade storm, like smoke screen, is in my opinion fine as is. Not the best, and not the worst, but right now it doesnt feel that great either because he doesnt have a good enough kit all around to begin with.

I literally put Ash down hours after crafting, and made a Rhino instead and havent looked back. Really hope they fix him up, because I really wanted to like this guy, but I just cant.

Edited January 15, 2013 by EXCVLIBUR

[Foxbyte]

Bladestorm is amazingly fun, I'm not sure if they improved it in the hotfix or not.

[Konnstruct]

The devs need to see this!

[EroShinigami]

Good, now that the topic was been moved to the right section, lets hope the devs will see =)

[Ronyn]

Ok so I decided to go ahead and grab ash despite the warnings.

I figured that whatever was wrong with him would be fixed sooner or later.

So here are my thoughts based on my road up to level 10.

The first few hours were pretty bad, I went with a general focus so I had shuriken,smoke bomb and bladestorm.

I didnt bother with teleportation because while it is theoretically an awesome ower its just not worth 75 energy.

The shuriken power was rather lackluster.

Doesnt hit particularly hard or peirce through sheilds consistantly...basicaly a waste of energy.

I imagine with more ranks it may do more but it needs to feel useful straight away.

Note to Devs: in a game with guns any projectile based ability must do more than what pulling the trigger does or its useless.

The smoke bombs stun and invisibility seemed to end too quickly to do much and the slow initial cast time made it hard to use reactivly.

It felt like it had potential but wasnt cutting it.

This is particularly bad early game when weapons dont take out enemies quickly and you dont have run speed mods to get away fast.

Note to Devs: Smoke bombs are, by design, meant to be used reactively when in a pinch. Shorten the cast time/speed up the animation.

I noticed that unlike what I do with excalibers radial javelin or rhinos radial blasts you can use it while coming down from a jump.

Thats too bad. It would be a great pop out and suprise attack manuver that would fit the Ash' intended stealth motif.

Bladestorm was quite capable of killing multiple enemies and that was nice but the landing felt random.

Obviously this early game limited energy means it barely comes into play often enough to get a real sense of.

So I'll reserve my judgement until Ive got to experiane it more.

Based on what showed potential for constistant usefulness so far I decided to respec and focus completely on The smoke bomb.

Suddenly my experiance was VERY different, i was actually having fun!

NOW I can see how I'll effectievly use this one in any battle.

The Ash had an identity beyond just shooting and slashing now....

Once fully ranked Smoke bomb lasts long enough to get me out of rough situations and with my previously leveled weapons I am able to spank or shank multiple targets before they realize where I am.

It is a wonderful defensive tool (they dont often hit what they dont see) that allows me to go on the offense.

Note to Devs: In addition to my before mention start up speed Smoke bomb utility needs to be more obvious right away.

Either lengthen the invisibility early on and let ranking up increase the stun duration from the smoke effect or vise versa.

One of those effects should be rather pronounced initially while the other can wait for ranking up.

Both being so shortlived just makes the ability overall feel weak.

So these are my initial thoughts...

I'll be back when I hit level 20. :)

Thanks for reading.

[[DE]Grineeer]

Thanks for the feedback guys, Some casting costs have been reduced. I will take a look at how long smoke bomb lasts.

[Ronyn]

Thanks for the feedback guys, Some casting costs have been reduced. I will take a look at how long smoke bomb lasts.

Thank you very much!

So wonderful to see my faith in you guys is well founded.

[LordOfScrugging]

IMO they should replace the shuriken with say a giant throwing star and have it hone in on enemies like the glaive in dark sector and i think the glaive should hit every enemy in the room to take off at the least a small chunk of their life to make it a bit easier to use him. for the smokescreen they should have a longer invisibility and have him all in the same skill because ninja's dont just stay there when they pop a smoke. they get the hell out of there. they should replace teleport with a kind of clone that can actually damage enemies instead of just sit there and take a beating. and blade storm sounds perfect to me

[Ronyn]

IMO they should replace the shuriken with say a giant throwing star and have it hone in on enemies like the glaive in dark sector and i think the glaive should hit every enemy in the room to take off at the least a small chunk of their life to make it a bit easier to use him.

Turn the straight on attack in to an aoe would make it different from what guns can do...

Though it seems to lack presicion which helps in stealth like attacks.

Seems like a more damaging but precisely aimed attack fits the theme better...

maybe something we can mouse over targets to decie where it flies?

That way we could choose to heavily damage one enemy or spread it out to several!

Panzer Dragoon anyone?

for the smokescreen they should have a longer invisibility and have him all in the same skill because ninja's dont just stay there when they pop a smoke. they get the hell out of there.

Darn Right!

they should replace teleport with a kind of clone that can actually damage enemies instead of just sit there and take a beating.

I have to disagreer with this one completely.

Teleport gives mobility. I dontw ant o loose the mobility I just want it to be more efficient,

It creates a certain feeling to be able to pop up on someone no matter how far they are from you.

the clone is interesting but Loki already has a decoy that can do damage....

ash and loki already have enough similary themes so it seems like an odd direction to build in even more.

[LordOfScrugging]

the clone is interesting but Loki already has a decoy that can do damage....

ash and loki already have enough similary themes so it seems like an odd direction to build in even more.

does loki's decoy really do damage? to me it just seems to shoot blanks to get the attention of the enemy. and i didnt mean to get rid of teleport completely. combining smokescreen and teleport seems more ninja like, just teleporting randomly into the groin of the turdstorm is reckless which ninja's dont really do.

[Ronyn]

does loki's decoy really do damage?to me it just seems to shoot blanks to get the attention of the enemy.

It does a littke and they said they would be increasing it.

and i didnt mean to get rid of teleport completely. combining smokescreen and teleport seems more ninja like, just teleporting randomly into the groin of the turdstorm is reckless which ninja's dont really do.

Oh I follow you now..sorry I misunderstood.

Thing is I enjoy being able to smoke bomb and run around invisible for a time.

Once I ranked it up I can usually clear a small room before it wears off.

Thats awesome.

Going with your train of though the the teleport would be helped by a disorienting effect on whoever you teleport to.

Less reckless and more of a "I got you know!"

Edited January 17, 2013 by Ronyn

[LordOfScrugging]

It does a littke and they said they would be increasing it.

Oh I follow you now..sorry I misunderstood.

Thing is I enjoy being able to smoke bomb and run around invisible for a time.

Once I ranked it up I can usually clear a small room before it wears off.

Thats awesome.

Going with your train of though the the teleport would be helped by a disorienting effect on whoever you teleport to.

Less reckless and more of a "I got you know!"

well with the loki think i dont seem to see any damage. i guess its just that little it does cause i only use it to get away or to distract a boss. never against regular enemies. lol instead i thought of something. why not have a skill where you can send out multiple clones to various enemies with a set amount of life that will explode like the explosive barrels? and it will be a set number just they will auto target random enemies and head towards them. this is just a random idea that i thought up lol. for the smokescreen thing is see what you mean. its just to me i feel that that should be a move to use when you are in a bind and got to get away. not be like "hehe im a ghost lemme attack you for a second" cause you will be in the same mess if you cant clear the room within the time frame. and the teleport thing i would like that but it seems like a waste of energy to just teleport behind them when there could be a different skill that would be better

[Ronyn]

well with the loki think i dont seem to see any damage. i guess its just that little it does cause i only use it to get away or to distract a boss. never against regular enemies. lol instead i thought of something. why not have a skill where you can send out multiple clones to various enemies with a set amount of life that will explode like the explosive barrels? and it will be a set number just they will auto target random enemies and head towards them. this is just a random idea that i thought up lol. for the smokescreen thing is see what you mean. its just to me i feel that that should be a move to use when you are in a bind and got to get away. not be like "hehe im a ghost lemme attack you for a second" cause you will be in the same mess if you cant clear the room within the time frame. and the teleport thing i would like that but it seems like a waste of energy to just teleport behind them when there could be a different skill that would be better

The most important thing to remember while playing as the ash is the theme song...

Im a ninja baby.

I just want ya to know,

It aint where I been.

But where Im about to go!

[Ronyn]

Ash feels much better so far with the costs reduced.

Since things arent as expensive one doesnt expect them to be so game changing.

So I have a question for everyone...

How strong does shuriken get at max rank?

Does it every go through the shields that some grineer hold?

How effective is it on heavies in general?

[DarkPhoenix]

Well, aiming properly at Ancients' head and shoot them with the shuriken should do the trick. For a one hit kill that is...