Mag's Abilities Need Adjustments

[aaa9]

*Sorry for the long post, I wanted to be thorough and helpful.*

Mag is my first warframe and so far I feel like she's too situational and a little redundant. From what I understand, Mag is supposed to be an offensive/support caster type. Or at least that's the way I feel she was marketed. However, all of her powers save her ult only affect 1 person and they're only useful against 1 and a half factions (the corpus being the first, the grineer being the half, and even that's a stretch). To make things worse, the abilities are all rare, which makes upgrading them a pain. The abilities should be nerfed to make Mag more viable in a wider variety of situations with teamates and during solo play.

Pull is definately useful, especially against the grineer, since they tend to keep their distance, and it can be used to pull away lancer shields. Even though it's not really all that useful against the infested it can be used on downed teammates, as well as stagger bosses and pull units into hazards. Hence, this power should stay as is. AndryB94 reminded me that all that needs to be added to this power is the ability to pull enemies over a rail (Lift them then pull them) when they are on a high platform instead of just knocking them down where you can't shoot them anyway. In addition, it would be cool if we could change the direction of the pull to in either of the four main directions. While casting, simply press a direction on the movement keys and the target would fly that way. Pull as a name wouldn't make sense anymore and would have to be renamed to something like Shove (since you can shove in all directions).

Shield Polarize seems to only be useful when playing defense missions to keep the cryo pod alive in intense situations. And it's only good against some bosses. The reason being is that for most enemies, moas especially, it's more time effecient to take down enemy shields your choice weapon, and using it amounts to you losing more of your own shields than your target. I think it would make more sense if the ability had a small area of effect from the initial target so that it would actually be usefull against the corpus and their moas (who tend to group together a fair amount of time). After some testing, I found out it does, it's just a very small area, about the size of a standard door (not the wide ones). A better solution to fix this problem would be to make the area bigger or, as PaperFett mentioned in RiftGuard's thread, if it would affect an area in front of you. This would allow for less time spent aiming and result in faster overall gameplay on this frame. I also think it sould be able to replenish your own shield. Why can you replenish your teamates' shield but not your own? The energy for using the power does not drain your shield, so it must come from an alternate source that in theory would be able to be a sort of back-up shield with the right configuration that Mag seems to have. You could 'aim' at yourself by hold down the power button instead of just clicking it. This would make the power useful during solo missions against swarms of enemies that don't have shields (like the infested). Adding these effects (small AOE, ability to replenish your own shields) to this power would justify the 50 point cost in my opinion.

Bullet Attractor sounded cool, but it ended up costing way too much for the affect it has. The bubble only lasts a few seconds. It also doesn't affect the energy weapons from the corpus (as far as I can tell) and the infested don't use bullets! This means it's only ever useful against the grineer. Even then, most of these situations only happen once in a blue moon and they're all pretty much only on grineer missions, which makes the situations even rarer. As pointed out by Soulfighter, the only clear supportive use is to make a boss stop firing on the team for a short while; or as pointed out by several others, if you're on a team with projectile abilities (like Excalibur) then you can do crazy amounts of damage to one enemy. This is marred by the fact that you can't target specific parts of big enemies (like the jackal) and it actually hurts people who have good aim, which is most of us, and the fact that it has no uses during solo play. To remedy the situation, first and foremost, the cost should be brought down to at most 50, ideally something around 35 so that when we do encounter the rare situation that calls for Bullet Attractor, we aren't afraid to use up energy that could've been spent more effeciently later on. The bubble should also attract the energy bursts from the corpus because as far as I know, light, plasma, etc. are all effected by  magnetism. The power would also be more useful if the effect lasted longer, so as to give unaware enemies the chance to do more damage than you could without having used a power. Lastly, I don't know if you can already, since I almost never use Bullet Attractor, but (<- you cannot) you should be able to target explosive barrels, windows etc., and specific parts of large bosses in order to add a bit more strategy. Like kobalt said, it could also be set up to automatically target crit areas, although that would make it too overpowered in boss fights with Excalibur and other projectile abilities, so this feature probably be better left out for balancing purposes. Alternatively or better yet, in addition to the extra features I already mentioned, halofury36 made a good point about the possibility of adding a duel nature to Bullet Attractor similar to that of Shield Polarize making it repel bullets if used on allies. It might have to be renamed to something like Bullet Redirection though.

 

Crush is the only power that's useful against all the factions, but on all of the factions, it's only useful against lower leved enemies. Since Mag is doing the work of lifting everybody off the ground already, I think it would be useful if enemies that weren't going to be insta-killed by the attack instead recieved half damage (for balance) and were levitated for a little while after the attack finished. This way, ancient infested don't knock you down the moment you finish destroying the chargers, runners, leapers etc. and you have time to get some distance between you and them. As Proprioception said in his post, it would also be nice if there was some way to mitigate damage while using Crush. Possibly by having a repulsive field around Mag for the duration so enemies could not enter. Or if enemies entered the area during the cast, they could be lifted and recieve very minor damage. Either one of these would make sense.

To end it, as is not all the powers should be rare, and even with the nerfs I suggested I don't think they should all be rare. Crush should be rare, for obvious reasons. Bullet Attractor should also be rare, since it's highly situational and probably won't be used as often anyway. Shield polarize could go either rare or uncommon, since it would be powerful. Pull doesn't seem all that special so I would like to see this as a common mod.

 

Thanks for reading, post your feedback and suggestions on Mag's abilities!

Edited April 30, 2013 by aaa9

[o_HiTMaN_o]

i See that ur Right ... and i have jsut post something like that About Rhino ...

 

i relaly Hope that Devs check the forums and see what Gamers Feel about  the game !!

 

i voted up for u ^_^ 

[Gummiel]

i say you need to paly a bit more with them, for pull i find it the most effective against infested actually, namely the disruptors, pull them in(before they get a chance to drain your energy ofc) and then stab thme and keep slashing them and they be almost if not totally dead before they get up. Shield polarize and bullet attartor need some love that is certain. As for chrush well i seem to fail it more times than not, even if my target are well in range and i have my crosshair perfectly on them it often dont do anything but a flashy animnation and wastes 100 energy.

 

So pull is the one i use most, but yeah the support side could need some love that is fore sure, and was the main reaosn i picked mag, whihc i end up soon replacing with a volt

[AndryB94]

To be honest, as Mag, I only use 20% Pull and 80% Crush. I tend to save up my energy for a Crush in the case I get surrounded...

1) The thing that bothers me with Pull is that if somebody's behind a railguard (especially on a higher level) Pull won't do anything. I would love if it could actually LIFT the target as well, just like it does in the open beta trailer. It wouldn't make it overpowered, and it would be a nice addition.
2) I agree soo much. I never, ever use Shield Polarize. Nothing to add here.
3) See above.
4) True. At higher levels, Crush begins to lose some oomph. Luckily it does have a very large range, so you can still affect a lot of units if you're swarmed or if you placed yourself cleverly.

[aaa9]

1) The thing that bothers me with Pull is that if somebody's behind a railguard (especially on a higher level) Pull won't do anything. I would love if it could actually LIFT the target as well, just like it does in the open beta trailer. It wouldn't make it overpowered, and it would be a nice addition.

 

That's something else that bothers me. I completely forgot about this while writing it, inserting now. Thanks

Edited April 27, 2013 by aaa9

[Soulfighter]

1) Pull is completely useless unless you want to revive a team mate (get rid of a grineer shield ? are you kidding me ? his head is visible on top on the shield, just 1 shot him)

 

2) shield polarize is completely useless, it needs to give shields to mag, why the F*** would i use 50 power to get rid of half the shield of an annemy when i can just kill him in 1 or 2 shots of a weapon ?

 

3) Bullet Attractor , this skill has ONE use : it prevent bosses from shooting on the team. That's it.

 

4) Crush is okay, it's completely outshined by banshee's ult which just does more dmg in a bigger aoe AND it makes banshee invulnerable but it's still okay , it kills low armor stuff but it becomes more or less useless on high lvl grineers though

Edited April 27, 2013 by Soulfighter

[aaa9]

i say you need to paly a bit more with them, for pull i find it the most effective against infested actually, namely the disruptors, pull them in(before they get a chance to drain your energy ofc) and then stab thme and keep slashing them and they be almost if not totally dead before they get up.

 

This sounds like it would work, but I never felt like I needed to do this because it isn't that hard to just run up and start slashing, with a Fury mod, they become stagger locked anyway.

[kokkilokki]

Good points.

What bothers me the most about Pull is that most of the time it doesn't bring the enemies close enough. It just leaves them somewhere, still too far away to melee them for example. This is why I think the in-game description is pretty misleading

 

"Magnetic force pulls the enemy towards you, stunning them and bringing them into melee range."

 

In most situations where I use the Pull, it doesn't bring them even close to melee range. :(

[aaa9]

1) Pull is completely useless unless you want to revive a team mate (get rid of a grineer shield ? are you kidding me ? his head is visible on top on the shield, just 1 shot him)

...

 

3) Bullet Attractor , this skill has ONE use : it prevent bosses from shooting on the team. That's it.

 

1) I know, I just shoot their heads too, but even though it doesn't take that much skill to shoot their head, it's undoubtedly easier to shoot them with their shield taken away, so it does add some functionality (plus I think it was nice on DE's part to put this small feature in there)

 

3) That's true, I'll add this function to the paragraph

[Amistyrja]

I started with Mag and I'm very happy with her though I use a Trinity now.

 

Pull is a very fun move to use, brings weaker enemies to the floor so you can shoot them in the head too.

I only use Shield Polarize for some bosses =(

Bullet Attractor? Use it on a boss with Excalibur on your team?

Crush is great for me because I often don't use it for the damage. Mag is invulnerable while casting and lifts enemies into the air so your team can shoot them. Oh and it's cool it shows that Mag does even lift. ^^ 

[aaa9]

Good points.

What bothers me the most about Pull is that most of the time it doesn't bring the enemies close enough. It just leaves them somewhere, still too far away to melee them for example. This is why I think the in-game description is pretty misleading

 

"Magnetic force pulls the enemy towards you, stunning them and bringing them into melee range."

 

In most situations where I use the Pull, it doesn't bring them even close to melee range. :(

 

This bothers me too, but changing it so that it always pulls them directly in front of you would take away some of the strategy to it (as far as pulling people into pits, next to barrels, on fire hazards etc.). The fact that they get knocked down, and damged by it, leaving an opening for you to attack with your gun anyway makes this annoyance bearable in my opinion.

 

The only way to have both pulling them directly in front of you and strategically pulling them next to hazards would be for the pull to last as long as you hold the button down, but that's a whole other can of worms.

[aaa9]

Bullet Attractor? Use it on a boss with Excalibur on your team?

 

I thought about adding this, I just felt like it went without saying that this combo is still highly specific and is only possible if your not playing solo. A good set of powers are functional both while on a team and while playing solo, which even Trinity, the most supportive frame, can boast. They should also be effective in some way against all factions. Loki's ult is a good example, it's supposed to focus on disarming people, but has an alternate function against the Infested.

 

I didn't mention any ideas for alternate function for Shield Polarize and Bullet Attractor, but if anyone can think of any balanced alternate uses, post them! The only one I can think of would be Bullet Attractor magnetizing the target in such a way that other infested get pulled to it, however it would only work for a fraction of the time that a normal use of the power does, since moving people is much harder than bullets.

If Shield Polarize could restore your own shield, then it wouldn't need an alternate use.

[halofury36]

I understand the concerns people bring up with mag, and I agree for the most part. The one thing I will add though, is that Bullet Attractor is extremely nice to use with Grineer heavy units. Being able to negate their damage and redirect damage back to them is very helpful.

 

It would be interesting though to have bullet attractor get renamed and maybe have a reverse function (i.e. target ally repels bullets for X seconds, probably % chance per bullet).

[Amistyrja]

If Shield Polarize could restore your own shield, then it wouldn't need an alternate use.

Yes please that would be so lovely

[Soulfighter]

I understand the concerns people bring up with mag, and I agree for the most part. The one thing I will add though, is that Bullet Attractor is extremely nice to use with Grineer heavy units. Being able to negate their damage and redirect damage back to them is very helpful.

 

It would be interesting though to have bullet attractor get renamed and maybe have a reverse function (i.e. target ally repels bullets for X seconds, probably % chance per bullet).

 

no it's not, they don't damage themselves and 75 is waaaay to much to negate the damage of a simple mob you'll kill in less than 5 sec anyway

[VER1]

Only thing I ever really used on the MAG to any great effect was  Crush.

I only used pull when I notice someone thinking they are winning something by leaving everyone behind and racing to the evac point.

[aaa9]

I understand the concerns people bring up with mag, and I agree for the most part. The one thing I will add though, is that Bullet Attractor is extremely nice to use with Grineer heavy units. Being able to negate their damage and redirect damage back to them is very helpful.

 

 

no it's not, they don't damage themselves and 75 is waaaay to much to negate the damage of a simple mob you'll kill in less than 5 sec anyway

 

Kinda This^ While killing mobs doesn't usually go that fast (unless you use Crush), 75 points of energy is too much.

 

 

It would be interesting though to have bullet attractor get renamed and maybe have a reverse function (i.e. target ally repels bullets for X seconds, probably % chance per bullet).

 

I like this idea a lot, adding it to the OP. The power could be renamed to something like Bullet Redirection.

This effect would make for more warframe interaction, so instead of just being useful with Excalibur, it would be useful with Rhino, Frost for tanking purposes, Saryn for a decoy, and Nyx for the mind controlled minion (assuming it's faction turned friendly after the Mind Control took effect).

Edited April 27, 2013 by aaa9

[D3thpool]

Mag is still my only frame (63 hours in) and well;

 

OP as a few good points, i want to add that imo the shield skill is only usefull for buffing the pod in defense missions, but if i use it against a enemy  the shield drain is laughable at best. Could use something more, like buffing oneself.

 

 

Also bullet attractor seems to be absorbing less damage that the affected enemy is actually dealing: mini bosses like the grineer heavy are barely damaged by their own shots when it should deal the full damage they are able to deliver to you (like when this one grineer boss uses the skill on you, you take the full damage if your shooting.

Whats the deal with that?

Again, situational skill at best.

[GratuitousLurking]

Bullet Attractor admittedly is only worth it on the big guys, but c'mon. It's also the biggest one for comboing with other projectile skills. I've yet to have a chance to try it with a Nyx's Psychic Bolts, but I know that it's able to line up a 1200 damage alpha strike with Excalibur's Javelin Toss thanks to foney's vidyas. Though it's ability to drag ammo to a target isn't quite so useful on the Jackal or for weapons that really need precision for max DPS (I'm looking at you, Snipetron.)

[Kobalt]

Pull is a better skill than people give it credit for, it synergizes well with weapons that have strong charge attacks. Pulling anything generally results in instant death to a downed attack. This is especially good when you consider that your downed attack probably ignores armor, this allows her 1 to scale into late enemies unlike practically every one in the game [Freeze, Shuriken and Venom being the exceptions]. It also saves lives on top of being good for pulling toxics off of the cryopod in later levels of defense missions.

 

I want to love Bullet Attraction, it has several great uses...It is plagued by a couple major problems though. It's faction specific nature, which you mentioned, being one of them. The other being that the way it works will usually cut your DPS. Projectiles are dragged from point of impact on the sphere to the center of the model of the target. This means that unless planned perfectly, it will generally undo shots to vital locations. My idea was always to make it work on all/most projectiles, increase the size/duration and lastly to cause it to attract bullets to the target's weak point. This would easily make it worth the 75 energy.

 

Crush is bland it relegates Mag's gameplay and Shield Polarize needs to be reworked into a new and less situational skill [Hoping that happens when they add alternate skill mods]. I along with a great many others have filled the forums with suggestions on the matter.

Edited April 28, 2013 by Kobalt

[Morgk]

Maybe pull need aoe, or arc to pull few enemies.

[istari_21]

why pull btw? its not rino, need push

[aaa9]

Bullet Attractor admittedly is only worth it on the big guys, but c'mon. It's also the biggest one for comboing with other projectile skills. I've yet to have a chance to try it with a Nyx's Psychic Bolts, but I know that it's able to line up a 1200 damage alpha strike with Excalibur's Javelin Toss thanks to foney's vidyas. Though it's ability to drag ammo to a target isn't quite so useful on the Jackal or for weapons that really need precision for max DPS (I'm looking at you, Snipetron.)

 

I'll add this use to the OP since it's been mentioned several times. (the Bullet Attractor bit is long!) Used this way, I could see why it would be 75, but this is would only happen if you played on a team on a world with a boss. What if you're playing solo, or on a regular mission? Then it's useless. It's great to have powers that are specific, but I think it's a better design choice to have, at the very least, mildly useful abilities in multiple situations than one really useful ability in a very specific situation, especially if you're going to make it a starter frame. Since people who start the game have no idea what they're getting into, having a super-specific power on a frame and making it sound like it's more useful than it actually is, is false advertising and liable to make people unhappy. If they made a frame with very specific abilities and made it a frame you had to work to get, that would be different, because the people who worked for that frame would know what they were getting into.

 

I want to love Bullet Attraction, it has several great uses...It is plagued by a couple major problems though. It's faction specific nature, which you mentioned, being one of them. The other being that the way it works will usually cut your DPS. Projectiles are dragged from point of impact on the sphere to the center of the model of the target. This means that unless planned perfectly, it will generally undo shots to vital locations. My idea was always to make it work on all/most projectiles, increase the size/duration and lastly to cause it to attract bullets to the target's weak point. This would easily make it worth the 75 energy.

 

Good Idea, adding it to the OP

[DarknightK]

I for one love spamming Mag's pull ability. It's probably the only ability I use worthwhile, yet I also run into the occasional guardrail problem.

 

Now I hate relating video game to video game, but I think Pull should work similarly to the Asari's Pull from Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, although without the air suspension bit.

 

Shield polarize, when used on an enemy, should nuke their shields like Overload in ME3

 

Bullet Attractor should absorb ALL bullet types and should also deflect bullets if used on an ally.

 

Crush...eh, I don't really have any qualms about it. Decent enough to me. Except that moment when a heavy unit smacks you across the room because of your vulnerability after using Crush.

[Necrosaur]

I agree, been playing mag 100%, (since I can never get helmet blueprints to drop)

 

The things mentioned above are all good, just a few tweaks.

 

1) Make pull lift them a short height before yanking them, and it should use enough force to pull them to melee range. If you have points in the power you should be rewarded not only with further target range but larger pull

 

2) shield polarize should really decimate a targets shield, disrupters do this with EVERY attack they do.

 

3) attractor (rename it to magnetize), really needs to last longer .and maybe be even more potent by slowly dragging all lose metal sources toward the target (like heavily armored grineer, mods, ammo boxes)  .  Using it on an ally could deflect a portion of bullets coming into the area like others said. With no target it gets cast on self.

 

4) Crush is fine but it should affect all enemies that enter the field, the final damage value equal to how long they were in the field before it popped. 

Edited April 29, 2013 by Necrosaur