Cause We Always Need More Warframes

[Zalnarth]

I see these Warframe Concepts on here from time to time and silently scoff to myself in some way or other with a trivial concern like balancing or impracticality or poor ease of integration, not to say a few gems have not crossed the way.
That said, I have been encouraged to put myself on the chopping block with a concept of my own so... 

Name:- not really important, I find myself agonising over trying to avoid words that have picked up allot of negative connotations recently, although the Dev team could always paint it in sparkles and let the joke run.

Design Purpose
I really enjoy the melee side of this game but so far it seems that the only frames really viable as melee are either the tanky frames like Frost and Rhino, or their Partners in Dps crime, the Loki and Ash. While one side of this coin retains their survivability via sheer durability, these frames feel almost cumbersome in method, Sure you can duke it out with the best of them but you're essentially the knight of the battlefield, closing in on fights with only base sprint. This is just fine for boss fights and I have no intention to step on their toes in this respect.
The other side of the coin (Ash and Loki) Are fully capable of dishing out ludicrous damage in melee while invisible, using their mobility abilities to exit when need be, control the battle, etc, and this is just fine also. Short durations of burst damage are a great thing, but unfortunately join in on the semi short lived bursty end of the spectrum, further, this additionally reduces the total number of targets on the field, which, in a 4 person mission can be catastrophic if, say, the tank is hung up on a boss or busy elsewhere, and suddenly half the party vanishes, leaving your squishy &#! hanging out by yourself surrounded by toxicants.

I'm not denying the Sayren or Excalibur can do melee, quite the opposite in fact but what I am looking to create here is something that doesn't simply have supplemental melee abilities but something built around the melee, more to the point thrives on it.

With these things in mind lets get to stats and abilities

​For reasons that will shortly become apparent we will need a focus on health, certainly enough that should events go horribly wrong the player has a chance to realise and make a swift retreat so lets start with a seemingly lop sided
Shield:- 75 at rank 0, 225 at rank 30

Health:- 225 at rank 0 675 at rank 30
Armour:- 100 like most of the middle range skirmishers, enough to grant a modest degree of survivability without immediately dropping dead like some 50 armour warframes or being a balls to the wall juggernaut like the 150 armour frames.
Power:- (Here I get a little fuzzy because I have no ideal way to test the longevity of a theoretical frame with theoretical ability's so I will leave this part blank for now, of course input and suggestions are always a good place to start)

And now for the fun stuff, Abilites! (and some justifications for each)

Pounce:- Somewhere between a teleport and a standard movement ability, I think it's important to have the frame actually pass through the intervening space, the ability will feel a bit more fresh and not just a carbon copy of Ash, while at the same time (Since this is meant to be a melee oriented frame) giving a short time to wind up a dropping slash. As a result we can avoid the rage inducing problem that ash has involving the immediate gun butt to the face upon arrival.
Level of the skill will of course increase maximum range anything from starting out at a mere 10 meters or so, right up to 50 or more at rank +3
Being an offensive ability (as its namesake suggests) I feel as though 'Pounce' should be targeted so that it can't just be called a more powerful version of Excaliburs' superjump.

 

Feed:- Here we reach one of the Archetypical abilitys'

As you have probably already gathered this is indeed a hp drain, more for the early levels of this warframe. I can imagine it being eclipsed by the Ultimate, except for one big difference, range.
I would prefer this as a relatively cheap, recovery, for that moment when you have bugger all life left and are kicking yourself thinking "well crud.."
Of course while this may initially seem ludicrously powerful at first since the only other frame that has this luxury is the Trinity, it is for this exact reason I suggest the lower than average shields and the overall purpose/role of this frame, Right in the thick of the fight, trading hits with lancers and toxicants alike.

My initial estimate for damage is as follows

0=150 Damage 100 Health gain 15 meters

1=250 Damage 150 Health gain 15 meters

2=350 Damage 200 Health gain 20 meters

3=450 Damage 250 Health gain 30 meters

 

Having the damage divorced from the actual portion of health gained ensures 2 things, Maxing out this ability very early on doesn't simply grant a player god mode on the first few bosses, while similarly allowing it to avoid a rapid drop off in usefulness as enemy units rise in armour rating.

 

Psychic roar:- I've never heard a tenno speak so I don't imagine one making any sound that isn't synthetic in some way, and the Banshee already has the sound gimmick monopolised, I suppose you could accuse me of robbing the nyx but I feel as though this ability doesn't come close to the precision of mental control the nyx embodies. This power is far more crude in repeating what is essentially a tired reuse of any 'AOE' fear ability, though here it feels appropriate and justified, Considering the rest of this frames kit this ability would likely have to be relegated to extremely short duration and high cost (very likely a 75 point power with durations as short as initially 1.5 up to around 5 seconds at most) causing fear and a slow affect, this would be the frames 1 and only true escape mechanism without some skilful use of pounce.

 

And lastly

Swarm:- (I sort of picture the affects of both feed and swarm being innumerate pinkie nail sized nanites (although at that size I think the term is inaccurate) coalescing as a fast moving cloud, to - from or around the player)

The Defining ability of this frame is a short range cloud that follows the player as they move, any enemy that enters the cloud takes a 'D.O.T' affect though that is more for thematic purpose than as the crux of the ability.

For each enemy in the cloud, for the duration of the cloud the frame would regain health in a parabolic fashion.

ie

a single enemy would net perhaps 10 hp per second

2 enemies would pick up 20 hp per second

3 = 40

4 = 80

5 = 160

and so on, or at least something similar

very high duration, being 100 energy I'm looking at twice the duration of Rhinos' Iron skin at least

another option being to retain about a 15 second duration at rank +3 and leave the cost at 50 energy (would certainly make it more combat viable instead of destroying a small group of enemies then running around wasting 2/3rds of the duration on nothing.)

 

The whole purpose of this ability functioning in this way is to allow the frame to functionally full-fill its role as the undisputed champion of melee combat, getting into the thickest of hordes and emerging virtually unscathed, all the while managing to avoid replacing the tanks we already have or out dps'ing the invisible back-stabbers/ember/mag.

 

Anyway, there you have it, pick it apart as you like

[fishworshipper]

I like it.