On The Damage Type Of Nyx' Absorb

[Bibliothekar]

Currently, Nyx' Absorb deals magnetic type damage. Magnetic deals extra damage to shields, has no damage multiplier against Infested and a malus against Grineer with alloy armor (for whatever reason). If it happens to proc, it decreases the enemies' shields by 75% for 4 seconds. Which, again, is useless against Infested and Grineer, who don't have shields to start with. Neither do they have to deal with the side effects that it has on Tenno (scrambled HUD, loss of all energy), since they don't have that kind of things.

Radiation, on the other hand, deals bonus damage on Grineer alloy armor, Corpus robotics, but has a malus for heavy Infested. But - it's proc effect is far more useful, as it confuses the enemy to turn against each other and lose part of their armor. (If the initial explosion doesn't kill them.) Which is much more fitting to Nyx' overall theme of messing with her enemies' minds, too.

So, maybe Absorb's damage type could be changed to Radiation instead of Magnetic? What do you guys think?

 

[Nova-Gamer]

I think that this is a pretty good idea, All frames other than Mag/Mag Prime who deal magnetic should deal radiation or some other damage type because magnetic is not very useful against anyone who is not corpus.

Edited November 5, 2014 by Nova-Gamer

[Ripcat]

I agree. The effect of the radiation proc would be more in line with the theme of the frame.

[Liminal]

Or 1/3 of each physical type or something. Just not magnetic ffs :/

Edited November 4, 2014 by The_Doc

[CaptainJohnson]

I think Magnetic could stand to be buffed as a damage type, which is a more overarching problem imo. I'm not sure about Radiation because at least two other 'frames already specialize in Radiation; Oberon and Nova. Still, I'd take just about anything over Magnetic for Nyx's Absorb.

[ClockworkSpectre]

They could just make it non-elemental, just flat damage.  Or they could even have it do the types of damage it takes in.

[direcyphre]

I also agree that Magnetic as a Proc could stand to be improved. For instance, make it so enemy weapons don't fire for 4 seconds or something along those lines. It obviously effects tenno quite aversely so it would make sense to have it do something other than effect shields, on the few enemies that have them.

[(PSN)MrNishi]

Magnetic works for Corpus and High Level Corrupted and Nyx has abilities that do not need Radiation. (Mind Control and Chaos)

Wanting to just change Absorb's damage type does not make sense to other Warframe abilities that have a set damage type.

People complain about Heat Damage with Ember.

Mag's Shield Polarize works wonders for Corpus and High-level Corrupted.

Certain Damage types cater towards a faction, Warframes abilities do not need to be a jack of all trades especially when weapons can be modded to diversify damage types and used to complement a Warframe's strengths or weakness.

Edited November 4, 2014 by (PS4)MrNishi

[Bibliothekar]

All frames who deal magnetic should deal radiation or some other damage type because magnetic is not very useful against anyone who is not corpus.

I wouldn't go that far. Magnetic damage fits Mag's theme just fine and she is my go-to frame against Corpus for that reason.

 

at least two other 'frames already specialize in Radiation; Oberon and Nova.

Actually, only Oberon specializes in Radiation (3 of his abilities) - Nova only has Antimatter Drop, Null Star deals slash and MPrime blast -, and even that only since his last rework. I don't fully understand why they decided to make him the radiation-frame, but that's another topic. And we'll always have abilities of different frames deal the same damage type (see: Volt/Mag and Vauban), so this is just something we'll have to live with. I'm not even asking to make all her abilities deal radiation damage (well, Psychic Bolts are the only other damage dealing ability she has and I think those are ok with slash), just that one.

 

They could just make it non-elemental, just flat damage.  Or they could even have it do the types of damage it takes in.

It seems like "flat damage without type" doesn't exist any more, but Impact might be a good choice and, again, fits the ability mechanics. Giving back the types of damage that you received might be to complicated to calculate (although I already toyed around with the idea that elemental frames can "charge" Absorb with their damage type, similar to Zephyr's tornadoes - maybe she'll some day get an augmentation that allows to do this).

 

Wanting to just change Absorb's damage type does not make sense to other Warframe abilities that have a set damage type.

People complain about Heat Damage with Ember.

Well, it makes sense that Ember's abilities deal Heat damage while Frost's abilities deal Cold damage. It doesn't, however, make any sense at all that Absorb deals Magnetic damage. Neither does it fit the overall theme of the warframe nor is it explained from the ability itself.

 

Warframes abilities do not need to be a jack of all trades

At no point did I suggest something like this, quite the opposite. Making Absorb deal Radiation damage would push her even further into her role as the one who messes with the enemies' minds.

Edited November 4, 2014 by Bibliothekar

[AlienOvermind]

Absorb damage type should be changed to Finisher damage. And to balance things out, absorbing teammates' fire should be turned off.

[(PSN)MrNishi]

@ Bibliothekar

I misunderstood. I thought you were looking into have Absorb do Radiation instead of Magnetic damage as that would be more suited for all factions versus how Magnetic only really is catered towards Corpus and Corrupted....

Implying it would improve her Absorb to be the only ability needed regardless of faction....making it a single 'Jack-of-all-trades' ability. Deals damage, protectects/Shields and causes CC by dealing Radiation (so no need to cast Mind Control or Chaos). That is what I assumed when you were wanting Absorb to deal Radiation instead of Magnetic.

Sorry for the confusion.

[Tsukinoki]

@AlienOvermind
Or turn the damage to finisher and just make the orb resistant/immune to finisher damage.

The reason that DE went away from its 'pure damage', as in no damage type just pure damage, is that people were bouncing absorbs off of each other infinitely for ever stacking levels of damage that would never stop going higher.  Considering that it deals 1500 base damage, people would just go for lowest energy drain and with 2 Nyxs you can get really insane damage really quickly.  1.5K to 3K to 4.5K, and depending on how rapidly you cycle it and use energy restores and allies shooting at it, it was easily possible to reach over a billion damage in a very short time scale.

They switched it to magnetic and then made the bubble resistant to magnetic damage so that you actually lose damage when you try to bounce multiple absorbs off of each other.

So if they make Absorb do finisher damage and yet suffer no damage from finisher attacks they will make absorb quite decent in dealing damage while at the same time preventing the bouncing that instigated the change over to magnetic in the first place.

And switching to finisher has another benefit: it wont matter what elements that your allies are using, you'll get the full damage added on from them as only a few skills, and ground finishers, deal finisher damage.
If we switched it to radiation than allies with radiation damage weapons would be adding quite a bit less damage to your Absorb than they otherwise would be.

Edited November 5, 2014 by Tsukinoki

[Liminal]

If that's the only reason they made it magnetic why didn't they simly code it so that Absorb is immune to absorb? Sounds like an simpler solution.

[Tsukinoki]

@The_Doc
Who knows if their engine could have easily been made to make an entity (the absorb bubble) immune to a single skill.  Depending on how things are coded its no where near as simple as it sounds.  Maybe they can only make an entity immune to all (such as the stalker) or none, and honestly I like the fact that I can feed an antimatter drop (which you cant change the explosion radius on) into an absorb (which you can) for very quick absorb damage gains.

Maybe without a re-work they could have only made it immune to all skills, so changing its damage type and making it resistant to that damage type may have been a much easier and simpler change for them to make then re-working how skills can interact with each other.

Since they changed the damage type it deals and made it resistant to that type, lets go with the assumption that within the engine that they use it was the simpler solution.  So another simple solution that would make absorbs damage more universally useful against all factions would be to switch its damage type to one that very few things can deal, and the thing that deals that damage can't contribute to absorb anyways, and then make it immune to that damage type.

Solves the issue DE wants to solve and makes it useful against all enemies equally, instead of leaving it useless against the one faction where it does really well with how much they like to huddle right around the bubble as close as possible.

Edited November 5, 2014 by Tsukinoki

[AlienOvermind]

Or turn the damage to finisher and just make the orb resistant/immune to finisher damage.

Well, I would support this, as I love Nyx. But I guess this should be considered OP. You know, just toss full Angstum clip to deal massive Finisher damage? Definitely sounds OP. Absorbing damage from enemies only + some multiplier maybe should be enough if we want Absorb to deal Finisher damage.

[Tsukinoki]

@AlienOvermind
When absorb was originally around it dealt pure damage that wasn't affected by enemy armor or anything else originally.  And people would use Ogris and other weapons to get to insane damage levels with it very quickly.
And you have to remember that absorb now drains extra energy for every 1K damage it absorbs, which also prevents it from getting too powerful as you'll run out of energy quite quickly.

All that the change to finisher damage while keeping ally damage in the picture does it move Absorb closer to what the skill was originally, while keeping in some of the balance changes that they have made (toggle ability; extra drain per 1K damage absorbed; no more absorb bouncing).

[Edgedemon]

I think that this is a pretty good idea, All frames who deal magnetic should deal radiation or some other damage type because magnetic is not very useful against anyone who is not corpus.

and Mag?

 

it should be "blast" which is the less useful damage type BUT is consistent with a huge explosion

[Bibliothekar]

Maybe they can only make an entity immune to all (such as the stalker) or none,

Since they regularly forget to make Stalker immune to a new frame's powers, I'm pretty certain that this is not the case.

[AlienOvermind]

And you have to remember that absorb now drains extra energy for every 1K damage it absorbs, which also prevents it from getting too powerful as you'll run out of energy quite quickly.

Ah, that's true. I kinda forgot about extra energy draining, since I haven't played with Nyx lately. You have a good point then, damage surely dealt by Absorb surely can be balanced by energy cost.