Reworking Sub-Par Frames

[RahuHordika]

I apologize but I cannot realy agree with your Super Jump proposition, I don't feel he needs a knockdown blast but rather enchance the mobility aspect the ability was meant to be used as.

What I think a rather simple and easy to understand, but effective, change would be instead to turn Jump into a 'Boost' ability, by this I mean it becomes an onmidirectional very brief dash while on the ground and while in the air (ie jumping) it keeps it's current Super Jump effect.

[Lvl99Gamer]

 

For a long time damage dealing frames have received the short end of the stick in regards to late game use. Their abilities scale into baby scratches and any buffs they receive give utility, which is fine, but for many it compromises what they are about.

Hence I've been playing the hell out of 3 of the Frames that really have fallen off in use, or only find use through roles that don't fit the rest of their kit. Specifically, I will be looking at Excalibur, Ember and Saryn.

(Note, these analyses were done before 14.6 and the recent discussions about Excalibur, so bear that in mind)

 

Excalibur

To start we need to look at the problems with his kit. Two of his abilities deal direct damage, one putting him into danger and the other taking half a year to cast for mediocre damage output. In addition another of his abilities only adds a small degree of mobility to his kit.

Historically I have always looked at Excal as a very mobile frame, indeed, I'd have put him at the top of the list for mobility. However with the release of Zephyr Excal has lost a lot of his usefulness in terms of mobility, since her first ability does a better job than his two mobility powers combined.

However, early game Excal is great, as his abilities are good teachers about how to react to situations, and help newer players pick up skills, hence compromising on this early game play is something that any balance changes should avoid.

 

So what Excalibur needs is the ability to dish out the damage later on, a bit more safety and a reason to use his mobility later on.

With that in mind I propose these changes.

(Any aspect not mentioned here can be assumed to stay the same)

 

Slash Dash:

Ability will initially deal 30% of the targets CURRENT health in direct damage, if this is less than the regular damage number, additional damage will be dealt up until this point.

Direct damage is not boosted by power strength and ignores 90% of an enemy's damage reduction.

In addition all other abilities can be cast whilst dashing without animation. Radial Blind and Javelin will not interrupt the dash, Super Jump however will.

 

Radial Blind: (Post U14.6)

Requires line of sight, though at a lower degree than in the 14.6 changes. Enemies will not block LOS. Blinded enemies will take 50% additional damage from his abilities.

 

Super Jump:

Now damages nearby enemies upon landing.

Deals 150/200/250/300 Blast Damage in a 3/4/4/5m radius upon landing. Additionally enemies hit with the blast will be knocked down.

This effect will occur regardless of the height reached by your jump.

In addition all other abilities can be cast whilst using Super Jump.

 

Radial Javelin:

Damage reduced to 750 per Javelin.

Javelins hitting targets will deal their regular damage , followed up by additional damage equal to 50% of the targets missing health in direct damage.

Targets struck with multiple javelins will take an additional 10% extra direct damage for each additional javelin, as well as the initial damage

Direct damage is not boosted by power strength and ignores 90% of an enemy's damage reduction.

Javelins gain 0.5/0.6/0.8/1m of Punch Through

Javelins will now target enemies in line of sight. If the number of javelins created is greater than the number of targets present, multiple will target each enemy prioritising enemies nearest to Excalibur.

 

 

So why these changes? To start it doesn't stop Excal from doing anything he is doing already. Initially I had planned to leave radial blind blank, since it was doing alight as it was, though after 14.6 and 14.6.1 it is assumed that the LOS change will be happening.

The biggest changes are to his first and final abilities, giving them both direct damage means that both will remain relevant right up into the endgame.

Slash dash dealing damage based on current health means that it works best as an initiation tool, encouraging the player to charge in with it to get as much damage in as possible. Subsequent strikes will deal less damage, so picking your targets becomes much more important.

Radial Javelin will now deal additional damage based on how weakened a target is. A single javelin for instance will always kill a target on 30% health of less, regardless of what level they are or how much armour they are wearing. The reduced damage on it was added to keep its base damage on about the same level as it is now. Additionally it becomes incredibly potent when facing smaller groups of enemies, as all Javelins will now target something.

The second big change is the freedom to use abilities at any point. Being able to hit blind while dashing means that you can freely charge in, knowing that any enemy who might want to shoot at you is now looking for a guide dog instead of firing their gin.

Finally the changes to super jump give Excal a tad more utility and encourages players to use it as an initiation tool.

 

Overall these changes have little impact on Excalibur earlygame, yet later on they mean that he can deal significant damage through his powers  and encourage greater use of his mobility while rewarding good timing of power use.

 

Saryn

Saryn is a rather interesting frame, she is poison/toxin theme, but her powers don't really gel together. She was good in the past, but that was because of the relative strength of her powers particularly Miasma.

The only consistent theme that she has is killing targets in unpleasant ways, hence my goal was to improve Saryns killpower in the late game, as well as making her abilities work together.

 

Venom:

Name changed to Contagion (Seriously)

Spores that are popped now create 2/4/6/8 additional spores.

Applying a new spore to a target will refresh the duration of all spores

Hitting a target with a spore will apply a Seeping Poison DOT that deals 0.25% damage per second for 4 seconds

 

Molt:

Hitting a target will apply a Seeping Poison DOT that deals 0.5% damage per second for 4 seconds

 

Contagion:

Name changed to Venom

While active all melee hits will return 5% of damage done as Health

Hitting a target will apply a Seeping Poison DOT that deals 0.25% damage per second for 4 seconds

 

Miasma:

Ability now is centred on Saryn, dealing damage in a radius around her.

Similar to how Banshee's Silence works

Hitting a target will apply a Seeping Poison DOT that deals 1% damage per second for 4 seconds

 

Unique Passive: Seeping Toxin

Hitting an enemy with damage from any ability will deal 1/2/1/4% (in order of respective ability) max health damage in 4 ticks over 4 seconds. Hitting an enemy with additional power damage will refresh the duration and stack the dot damage.

For venom this only applies on an enemy being hit with an additional spores

To explain, an enemy hit with miasma will start taking 1% of their health in damage each second for 4 seconds, on being hit with the next tick the duration will reset and the damage will increase to 2% per tick, on the third it will increase to 3% and so on.

A Miasma cast with no duration mods will deal 1/2/3/4/4/4/4% of a targets Health in additional direct damage totalling 22% of a targets health in additional damage extra damage if all 4 ticks hit an enemy.

Damage dealt is rounded down, if the DOT would be lower than 1hp it would deal no damage.

DOT is capped at 10% per tick.

 

Wow a unique passive!

What these changes aim to do is to give Saryn back some of her old face-melting power without making her overly oppressive at lower levels.

The changes to her first ability bring back a bit of its old nastiness while keeping it a tad more tame. The Passive damage it gets may well be a tad too high, though that shouldn't be too hard to rebalance.

The changes to her third ability are a bit more dramatic as they give her a tad more survivability with some innate lifesteal, it doesn't fit her theme as such but it makes her work better gameplay wise, again the passive damage would need a bit of a look

Miasma gets the brunt of the effect, without any mods it will deal at least 22% of a targets health. The passive also means that increasing the duration on Miasma has a real positive effect on the skill, letting it build up the DOT a bit more and allowing more focus on its stun effect as well.

Not really much more to say, I'd really like to be able to playtest these changes to see their actual effects in order to scale them correctly.

 

Ember

Ember is meant to be a frame that slings off constant fireballs and burns everything in her path to a fine ash. She doesn't do that at all. Her entire kit is based on damage, and yet as soon as she starts moving into the late game she simply lacks the damage that she needs to kill things, reducing her in effect to a poor-mans Nova or Banshee.

Simply giving Ember utility in the same way that Oberon did would turn her from a blazing inferno to an oil lamp, useful, but not nearly as much fun.

With that in mind Fire Blast is a rather outdated skill, it worked alright back in the days of overheat when ember could sit in her ring of fire sponging damage and burning everything to death with her 2, 3 and 4 all up at once.

Really what Ember needs is a rework of her third skill and the ability to do a lot more damage later on.

 

Fire Blast:

Replace that lame ring of fire with the massive blast that Eximus Units get.

New Fire Blast:

Cost: 75 Energy

Creates an expanding wall of fire that damages and knocks down any enemy in its path.

Deals 100/150/200/300 Fire damage in a 10/13/17/20m Radius. Wall expands out at 4m/s

Power is boosted by Strength and Range mods.

 

Unique Passive:

Intense Flames

Damaging an enemy with an ability grants Ember 10% additional power damage for 10 seconds. This effect can be stacked and has its duration refreshed any time Ember casts a power.

This effect can only be applied once per cast of a power.

The timer for this passive shown on the bottom right of your screen, just above the other stats, and is paused during the intermissions of Defence and Interception missions.

 

Unique passive number two!

Changing Fire Blast to what the Eximus Units use gives Ember some much needed CC, without compromising what she does.

The real change comes with her new passive mechanics. Allowing Ember to stack up power damage means that she scales extremely well in long games, and is able to stay relevant as a source of damage.

With her passive, Ember play would become a lot about energy management in order to keep her stacks up.

 

Anyways, that is all I have for now, feel free to ask any questions that you have and all feedback is welcome.

Cheers 

 

 

+1 for nice Ember ideas.

[Amazerath]

Anyways, that is all I have for now, feel free to ask any questions that you have and all feedback is welcome.

 

 

Why did you ignore the CC component already built into Accelerant? What you're proposing for Fire Blast is incredibly similar to what Accelerant already does. The major difference is that you're using damage instead of damage multiplier. The range is the same and Accelerant only costs 50 energy as opposed to Fire Blast's 75. So Accelerant would become far more useful on end game content (300 base damage is not useful against high level enemies).

[Sixty5]

Why did you ignore the CC component already built into Accelerant? What you're proposing for Fire Blast is incredibly similar to what Accelerant already does. The major difference is that you're using damage instead of damage multiplier. The range is the same and Accelerant only costs 50 energy as opposed to Fire Blast's 75. So Accelerant would become far more useful on end game content (300 base damage is not useful against high level enemies).

Knock back and stuns are two rather different things.

Firstly a revamped fire blast would make clearing an area around you a breeze, it is like a more potent 360° Sonicboom.

Secondly the purpose of the power having damage is to work with her passive, you can press 3 for free stacks since it will almost always hit something, and damage is a requirement. The mechanics of the expanding wall mean that it can't simply be spammed for masses of stacks (part of the reason damage is a requirement for her passive *accelerent*)

Finally, though 300 base might not sound like a lot of damage, with the passive that 300 damage jumps way up.

Accelerant gives 250% fire damage base. At 10 stacks that jumps to 500%. Fire blast itself goes to 600. Combine the two for 3k fire damage to any enemy within 20m of you, as well as knocking them back.

That is more than most ultimates do, and it only gets stronger with mods.

[Amazerath]

Knock back and stuns are two rather different things.

 

If you're talking about stats like duration, then it would be just a matter of adjusting those. But if you're talking about some other difference that does not involve numbers, then I don't understand what you are referring to. The only other difference I see is in the animations used for each effect.

 

 

Secondly the purpose of the power having damage is to work with her passive, you can press 3 for free stacks since it will almost always hit something, and damage is a requirement. The mechanics of the expanding wall mean that it can't simply be spammed for masses of stacks (part of the reason damage is a requirement for her passive *accelerent*)

 

The problem I have with these passive powers is that you're not presenting them as a new game mechanic, but as balancing alternatives for a very select group of warframes. If we are going to have passives then I'd like all warframes to benefit from them, not just Ember and Saryn.

[Sixty5]

If you're talking about stats like duration, then it would be just a matter of adjusting those. But if you're talking about some other difference that does not involve numbers, then I don't understand what you are referring to. The only other difference I see is in the animations used for each effect.

The problem I have with these passive powers is that you're not presenting them as a new game mechanic, but as balancing alternatives for a very select group of warframes. If we are going to have passives then I'd like all warframes to benefit from them, not just Ember and Saryn.

The big difference between knockbacks and stuns is that a stun roots an enemy in place wheras a knockback will move them away.

If you want to shoot or melee an enemy a stun is nice for making them an easy target.

However when running in to save a downed teammate, it is typically nice to clear out the area.

Having access to both would give ember options, which is always nice.

As for the passives point, I totally agree. However the point of this thread is looking at rebalancing these frames in particular, not giving every frame a unique passive.

I'd love to go through and look at that at some point, but given how long this took it may take awhile