Bring Back Iron Skin Face Tanking

[sanj66]

Yo dont seem to understand that the discussion has been about the history of Rhino so.... let me restated. 

The conversation is about the history of Rhino.

 

Do you understand?

you do not seem to understand as i know it is on the history of rhino, but look at the english you used, you said HAVE which is present tense, not his history or past, that means at this current moment rhino's innate abilities have 3 ccs so again i ask you to specify at this current moment, name his 3 innate abilities that cc, either that or check your english.

I still think the sollution is as follows, reduce iron skins health it gives you to like 400-600 at max rank, give it the same 4 seconds of damage absorbing as snow globe, and give it a hard aggro to pull enemy fire onto you, this would make it so that it's not god mode in early game, but also make it scale with late game.

this would not work, as lets say a team mate cc's just before or as you cast, guess what you're back to paper skin, also it renders iron skin useless to lets say infested cuz you have poison and energy leech or even arson eximus's fire proc that can either kd you or force you to cast is before anything is in range to deal damage especially on melee type opponents. this has huge flaws and is one of the reason its considered a bandaid on frost to help it scale. also mobs can be killed lets say you cast and your team mate has a penta or ogris or even opticor they can wipe out targets that would have contributed to your absorption. 

[Mak_Gohae]

1: How many times do they have to say words like "defense", "resilience", "immovable" and even "TANK" for the point to come across? You could take any one of those words and argue hes not meant to be a tank..but all together? come on.

Sounds like you're taking every one of the multiple statement made by DE that hints or even says "tank" and just dismissing it.

I mean really: Not every frame gets described as becoming a tank just because defense mods are equipped. At least not by DE...

Yet DE directly describes Rhino as a Tank when his total stats and kit are looked at as a whole.

Granted that some other frames these days have become pretty tanky due to certain mod combinations that appeared over time..and certain abilities....that is exactly why some of us are pointing out how rhino has lost his place as the premier tank of the game.

 

 

You are taking the one time they said the word tank and turned it into the focus then trying to link every other single word to that one time they used it.

I am not linking words to that one statement mentioned that one time. I take the words are they are given.

 

2: league of legends is  MOBA. Each character has 1 passive and 4 active powers. Most of the tanks I listed have a CC on 3 of their active powers.  Most of which are multi-target, charge forwards, knock ups, slows etc....In other words CC is a core staple for the Tank role in that game. According to the only two frames De refers to as tanks ion their videos (Rhino and Frost)...CC is a core staple for the tank role in warfarme as well.

 

Like i said, i dont know the game so i need a whole mess of info.

So tanks have 3 CC abilities? Are you sure they are tanks?

 

3: I don't know what style of game your definition of Tank is coming from....but its not ALL about Iron skin.

Tanks aren't defined simply by how many personal defense buffing abilities they have. It's a matter of how it all comes together.

An energy pool defines how often a frame can use powers, but it is what the powers do when combined with the frames stats...

That makes a frame what it is.

 

The definition comes from their role. They are build to take hits and their powers revolve around helping that.

Rhino never revolved around Iron Skin when most of his powers were knock downs which already stopped damage from not only you but everyone else.... aka a CCer.

Certain people made the frame revolve around that power because it was the cheapest tactic and DE decided to listen to them.

[Holeypaladin]

Rhino always revolved around iron skin... especially back when iron skin granted invincibility.  It became less of a focus once the invincibility was removed, but it was still a staple ability of Rhino until it reached the point where iron skin could no longer keep up with the massive amount of damage.

 

In fact the iron skin is so much a staple skill of Rhino's that it is one of like  three skills in the game that actually got a cosmetic change for Rhino Prime.  Proof that it's his defining skill, it even changes color to prime gold when used on the prime version.  Problem is... it went from being the absolute best defensive power to the absolute worst simply due to enemy damage scaling and its static number.

 

Simply because some people don't use iron skin a lot doesn't mean it's not his staple power.  If he's not the ironskin frame, then why is it described in Rhino prime's codex?  And why does it look different on Rhino prime?

[Bobtm]

Edit to the above;  IS looks different on Rhino Prime because IS is all you see while it's active.  Pre-change Rhino Prime just looked like a slighlty bigger Rhino with a key smashed into his face.  The aesthetic change was to allow the differentiation between Prime and non-prime as 90% of all Rhinos are always in IS.

 

I'm not hopping back into the "Is Rhino a Tank situation."  I'll let you guys hash that whole deal out as I've more than said my piece on it.

 

Anyways, specific tankiness is a go;

That is the question, isn't it?

 

As far as what levels... I'd say at the very least it needs to work very well for T4E solo missions (exterminate to me is built for solo play since it's the easiest mission type) to the point where he doesn't die or lose his iron skin in one hit like he currently does to those dang lankas.  Also it should work well for T4 endless missions up to 20 mins minimum, probably 40 as well since most teams aim for that second rotation C.

 

As for how much... well, warframe durability in general probably needs to be rebalanced.  It should be as good as any existing damage reduction power in the game, but some of the damage reduction powers are incredibly OP like the 100% DR of Hysteria and the 95% of eclipse and shatter shield (situational as they may be, 95% is still way too much).

 

85% was the first attempt at revisions to iron skin, so I tend to fall back to that one.  Any lower would require further nerfs to trinity, mesa, and mirage as well.  At 85% the power scaling to eclipse and shatter shield could be removed, but if you go for something lower than 85%, further nerfs to link, hysteria, valkyr's armor (which is 81% before war cry, so around 90% with it), eclipse, and shatter shield would also be required in order to keep parity between the various damage reduction powers.

 

A lot of people dislike the idea of percentage based reduction, but to me it's the only way I can think of to let it scale into the late-game, since the current flat number is godlike at low levels but worthless at high levels.

 

You have some solid ideas but you're still to single-focused on things in an isolated way.  For these types of changes you have to take into account all facets of a given frame.  This isn't something you can just subtract one part of in a bubble and call it done, that's just not how balancing works.  Calling for nerfs to other frames who already have limiters on their damage resistance capabilities when purely looking at numbers is wrong, outright wrong.  Especially compounded when you personally haven't imposed any limiters at all to Rhino's suggested DR gain.  Remember, balancing is always key, you cannot just change things willy nilly without being very mindful of the changes.

 

We'll start off with Valkyr first and foremost out of the grouping.  She has 81% through armor utilizing Steel Fiber, however Armor only applies to HP and not to Shielding, the one that doesn't naturally recharge in and of itself.  Not gonna check the numbers to make sure the 81% is right either... it's too early for math but I'll assume you're correct for this point.  Basically it's a limiter, her DR is purely tied into Armor rating, this drawback means there are dangers, damages which ignore Armor can be fatal.  Of course Valkyr also has Hysteria (which fully needs to lose its invulnerability in my opinion) so that throws things notably out of whack.  Her base armor styled resistance is fine at the moment, it's got things that keep it in check, it's not a truely flat and all encompassing 81% DR.  Valkyr's CC capabilities are also very limited at base.  She has a lite-CC with Warcry and a hard non-radial CC with Paralysis, however the latter also subtracts from your shielding and has a very short standard stun duration.

 

Next up we'll hop over to Mesa, her DR is purely and only against incoming bullets.  This is a very massive limiter to her supposedly noted "tanking" capability.  Again you cannot just say it needs weakening based purely on the statistical number available at max without taking into account the weaknesses/flaws with the skill.  Incoming grenade chucked your way?  Pfft good luck surviving that direct hit.  These inherent limiters are why some DRs are allowed to be high, it's a proverbial crack in a seemingly perfect shield.  It prevents one from mindlessly going ham, care must still be taken to avoid demise.  Mesa has next to no innate CC capabilities as well, she can't snap her fingers and put a hard stop to things to catch a breather.  Her DR can be modified by power strength.

 

Now onto Mirage, who's DR is hard tied to positioning and map lighting levels.  Now while there are a good many places where one can find shadows, these places are not constant throughout.  Because of the limiter on her own DR skill, Mirage is unlikely to ever be able to just hop on over and revive a player in the thick of things, her DR has notably hard limitations and drawbacks.  Beyond that she has no CC invulnerability within this point, meaning that an attack which strikes even a shadowed Mirage could potentially proc in a way that moves her from her current point.  If that ends up moving her outside of said shadow... well say goodbye to your entire DR instantly.  She does have the strongest overall CC accessability of these frames noted so far in the blinding effect of her 4.  However it is still arguably a weaker CC per single use than Rhino's 4.  Her DR can be modified by power strength.

 

Lastly we've got everyone favorite nerf magnet, Trinity.  This frame's got two DRs, a proverbially "no strings attached" 75% in Link with Blessing which can become higher.  Everyone already knows Blessings limitations so I won't go into detail here, instead with Trinity we can note her near absence of CC.  Atop that, Trinity is a "slow" frame, even slower than Rhino in the fact that unlike him, she has no skills with potential mobility.  Link does however provide Trinity with CC immunity, so she's also got a gain there.  Her DR values cannot be modified by power strength.

 

To simply suggest nerfs to these other frames purely by numerical values is closed minded.  By comparison if we make no other changes to anything for instance, it wouldn't be excessive to just give Rhino's IS a flat 80% DR for instance.  Of course an easy potential change route would be to modify the actual base cost of Rhino's 2 in this particular scenario.  As a slight sidebard;  I don't think we've got enough frames which break the trend in regards the the "standardized" energy costs at the moment.  Banshee is a major beacon of awesome in thist regard as her 2 is a literal ultimate in terms of cost... and in terms of amazingy goodness.

 

If you leave IS at a base cost of 50, you can't just go throwing more advantages on it than all of these noted 3 skills with the blinders on style focus on making Rhino more tanky because "Rhino is tanky".  These kinds of things all tie into one another in the intricate web of balance, which is why balance is so freaking hard to actively achieve and maintain in game design.  You want Rhino's IS to be a massive catch-all DR and CC indemnification skill without any limiters?  At that stage we're easily looking at the territory of an ult in terms of usability rather than a 2.

 

There are a lot of creative limiters one could instead impose upon this hypothetical DR% Iron Skin.  Some off the top of my head things (vague ideas without properly balanced values);   Speed reduction / Mobility limiters like losing the ability to jump or sprint / Either or type choices, like you gain lower DR if you're moving, and full DR while standing still / Subtracting damage from the player's gun and melee attacks whilst wearing IS.

 

All in all, currently Rhino is a frame with a niche 1, a strong 2, an outstanding 3, and a great 4.  Atop that he's got markably high base stats which grant him fairly high "ease of use" as well as a kit which doesn't require a great deal of planning but still rewards skilled play.  He isn't a frame in need of a major buff, thusly it's best to make changes more thoroughly or intricately within this realm.  Beyond the above noted possibilities you could even nerf Rhino Stomp into oblivion to remove Rhino's hard CC capability.  Personally I feel like this would be the worst route to take as it would hit Rhino's variability in playstyle, but it is another option.

 

Further edityness becaus typos.  Also, I'm really longwinded...

Edited January 17, 2015 by Bobtm

[Holeypaladin]

Rhino wasn't considered overpowered back when all of his skills were the same as they currently are except iron skin having an 85% DR.  It was only changed because Rhino players of the day didn't realize how amazing it was and demanded an "improvement" to the current iron skin.

 

But because it wasn't considered OP at the time, it shouldn't be considered OP now to simply switch back to the second iteration of iron skin, since it's really what he should have had the whole time.  Currently his 2 is only "strong" in early starmap nodes, since it falls so quickly to damage at high levels.  What I'm suggesting wouldn't make iron skin much different than the current Link skill, but equipped on a tank frame where it is more logical to have a powerful tank power than it is on Trinity, a pure support frame who also happens to be way too good at tanking.

[Ronyn]

You are taking the one time they said the word tank and turned it into the focus then trying to link every other single word to that one time they used it.

I am not linking words to that one statement mentioned that one time. I take the words are they are given.

Multiple words don't have to be "linked" to a singe one, they just ALL have to be taken as part of a whole description.

That video describes several common attributes of a tank then they calls him a tank directly.

Are you going to say that frost is not meant to be a tank either because he has only one defense ability, 3 damager/CC's, and the video only calls him a tank once?

 

Like i said, i dont know the game so i need a whole mess of info.

So tanks have 3 CC abilities? Are you sure they are tanks?

It's a complex game but I'll try to explain a bit of it. To keep it as simple as possible I will focus on one example.

http://gameinfo.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/game-info/champions/sejuani/

She is found under Champions, click on "tanks", and she is in the list. She was designed to be a Tank.

In their words from the video-"Sejuani is a mobile TANK with strong initiation and crowd control abilities" 

Her first power is a charge that knocks up who it runs into it, her second power is an aoe damage dealer, her third power is a slow that can be on several enemies, her fourth power stuns or slows of all enemies in an area.  That is 3 out of 4 active abilities that have a crowd control component. Plain as day.

 

In case you're curious about more-

Her is another champion page of a guy found on the tank role list with 3 out of 4 abilities that have a solid CC component.

Now they never call him a tank in that video (they only call him tanky a couple times)... but he is on the tank list.    

http://gameinfo.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/game-info/champions/sion/

 

The definition comes from their role. They are build to take hits and their powers revolve around helping that.

Rhino never revolved around Iron Skin when most of his powers were knock downs which already stopped damage from not only you but everyone else.... aka a CCer.

Certain people made the frame revolve around that power because it was the cheapest tactic and DE decided to listen to them.

This is the disconnect. As long as you think tanking is just personal defense, you'll keep only seeing iron skin as a tank ability.

However, as my above example illustrates, the role of tank is not defined just by their ability to take hits and powers that revolve around it. 

So If we need a single sentence definition it would be-

The role of tank is defined by their ability to mitigate damage for themselves and allies.<-there is a distinct difference in this definition. 

 

Now this can be done in multiple ways.

One way is to be good at initiating (charge), shrugging off blows and enemy CC (iron skin), and stopping enemies from being able to harm allies by stopping their action (stomp). Another way is to create a bastion of protection for self and allies (snowglobe) as well as slow or stop the actions and advancement of enemies at various ranges and situations (freeze, icewave, avalanche) while being sturdy enough to get into place.

[Ronyn]

Rhino

Is rhino really that strong right now? Rhino's got uses for sure.... but is he ever the "best" pick for any group activity end game?

I mean if one wants to do damage there are better frames (saryn/nova), if one wants to do cc their are better frames(vauban/nyx), if you need to keep an object safe in defense mod you're better off taking frost...If you need a rezzer it's better to have someone who can turn invisible.

 

Rhino's only real chart topper is his ability to walk through CC's and take a big hit to the face(assuming we ignore Valkyrs invincibility).

But in practice... the resistance of iron Skin just It isn't dominant enough to make him a "best pick" in an organized group.

Being a "jack of all trades" isn't getting him picked. Him being able to survive and contribute in random pugs is claim to fame at this point..

and that isn't really that great of a thing.

 

Despite him being stuck in second and/or third string there seems to be a common fear that he will get too strong with any improvements. 

One should always be wary when making changes but I feel like folks should loosen up a bit on considering some improvements on his resilience.

[Holeypaladin]

 

Being a "jack of all trades" isn't getting him picked. 

To add on to that... if you want a damage buff, you're better off picking Nova since her damage buff also provides massive CC as well.

[Bobtm]

Tagged to save space like before;

Is rhino really that strong right now? Rhino's got uses for sure.... but is he ever the "best" pick for any group activity end game?

I mean if one wants to do damage there are better frames (saryn/nova), if one wants to do cc their are better frames(vauban/nyx), if you need to keep an object safe in defense mod you're better off taking frost...If you need a rezzer it's better to have someone who can turn invisible.

 

Rhino's only real chart topper is his ability to walk through CC's and take a big hit to the face(assuming we ignore Valkyrs invincibility).

But in practice... the resistance of iron Skin just It isn't dominant enough to make him a "best pick" in an organized group.

Being a "jack of all trades" isn't getting him picked. Him being able to survive and contribute in random pugs is claim to fame at this point..

and that isn't really that great of a thing.

 

Despite him being stuck in second and/or third string there seems to be a common fear that he will get too strong with any improvements. 

One should always be wary when making changes but I feel like folks should loosen up a bit on considering some improvements on his resilience.

 

I suppose that's just it though, Rhino at the moment doesn't really have any markable weaknesses within his kit.  He currently is a rasonably solid "jack of all trades" and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  At this point I will make a sidebar note that it sort of sucks that we don't have a proper tank frame again.

 

Raw resilience and survivability through numbers is a very dangerous thing however, given too much and a player literally won't die save for fully going AFK.  Too little on the other hand and said resiliency is considered not good enough as a straight defensive trait.  It's sort of impossible to get every choice of character in a game to a point where they're all "best" at something unless you have very, very few characters with incredibly distinctive roles which bind their variable usability throughout all scenarios.

 

There are some reasonably clear roles scattered through various frames of course, but they aren't incredibly limiting as much so as in other games.  This is both in part to the current spammability in our powers' nature and with the sheer number of total frames.  Further on that road most all of the early frames speak to a much broader scope in their kits while later frames tend to be more focused in specialization.  Because of this a lot of the earlier frames are the ones constantly considered "too weak" because when you're at the endgame in most games, jack of all trades archetypes start to show their weaknesses.

 

Personally I always have and will be okay with these "jack of all trades" characters falling off at the hardmode or endgame activities.  You're trading off specialized power for broad power, so of course something in that realm will never be viewed as best in a rigid team scenario.  Four specialists will always outpreform any team utilizing these "jacks" simply because of how such things play out.

 

Of course that isn't to say I'm against changing Iron Skin of course, if I were against it I'd have vacated this thread quite some time ago.  It's notable that the ability does lose steam when you're at the end stages.  But my issue is simply that I genuinely don't think an all rounder should have the greatest tanking skill without any drawbacks, because then he's going to be too powerful.  If he's got good CC and the best survivability... well then you'd potentially run into a situation where the arguably best team is to run with 4 Rhinos, as having hypothetically really high DR% without drawbacks and the hard CC that is Stomp spell doom for any potential foe.

 

It's a very complicated and tricky situation to me at least.  I honest to goodness can't come up with an appropriate DR% which would provide meritable defenses for Rhino to appropriately work for endgame without making him clearly overpowered.  Of course this is at the end my own viewpoint on things and, if it wasn't clear enough, I'm definitely a bit of an extremist when dealing with these sorts of issues.  DR% is the most dangrous of statistical buffs to work with as it is way too easy to end up becoming either fully invulnerable or having it so low as to be entirely irrelevant.  That's sort of why I best like the idea of having the DR% be notably high (~90%) but coming with a distinct limitation which provides a very clear weakness.  Trade something for super high tankyness basically.

 

On that exact train of thought, this is the only reason Valkyr has likely been allowed to retain invulnerability on Hysteria for as long as she has.  That skill brings with it a very hard limiter as it fully locks a player out of their entire arsenal.  Not only that but it doesn't make her immune to procs, if it did that I'd be heavily advocating for an immediate nerf on that ability for certain.

[Ronyn]

 

 It's sort of impossible to get every choice of character in a game to a point where they're all "best" at something unless you have very, very few characters with incredibly distinctive roles which bind their variable usability throughout all scenarios.

The goal would be to get each frame to be among the best in a certain category.

For example frost and mesa play extremely differently but both are awesome in defense modes.

One blocks incoming damage, the other excels at destroying everything coming in.

The only real similarity is that they have powerful stationary skill so a stationary mode is right up their alley.

 

 If he's got good CC and the best survivability... well then you'd potentially run into a situation where the arguably best team is to run with 4 Rhinos, as having hypothetically really high DR% without drawbacks and the hard CC that is Stomp spell doom for any potential foe.

I feel like that is where the disconnect is. The whole idea that Rhino's all aroundness and lack of clear weakness translates to OP if his defense was top notch. Then he would become the go-to frame for everything. I just don't see that happening with good organized teams.

Other frames bring other important things to the table that rhino would still be lacking....

 

But lets try a random idea to kick around.

What if Rhinos armor rating was applied to iron skin the same way that it applies to health.

That would automatically raise the effectiveness of it by a solid degree.

Now imagine adding that with the IronClad Charge augment.

A smart rhino could barrel through multiple enemies and raise the armor effect on his iron skin to a huge degree.

That sort of thing is the kind of "skill" based mechanic I would like to play around with. 

Edited January 17, 2015 by Ronyn

[Holeypaladin]

 

 

What if Rhinos armor rating was applied to iron skin the same way that it applies to health.

 

 

I don't think armor alone applied to iron skin is sufficient with Rhino's current armor.  If he had as much armor as Valkyr, then yeah definitely, or even half as much armor as Valkyr and it'd still be a significant improvement.  But with base 190... it's not quite enough to measure up to Trinity's link alone, much less link+blessing, or eclipse, or shatter shield.  A better solution would be "bump Rhino's armor to 300 and then apply armor to iron skin".

 

Anyway, I think it's pretty clear if you look at the current balance of warframes that the 2014 warframes are significantly more powerful than the 2013 warframes for the most part.  There's exceptions of course (Nova, Loki, Trinity), but for the most part the 2014 warframes are designed to scale well into the late-game while the 2013 warframes have mostly simple damage-dealing powers.  Most of the 2013 warframes that DO scale well into the endgame have received some revamps to their entire kit, like Nova.

 

Rhino's kit was revamped back in 2013 though, before they started designing powers that scale well.  I believe that a lot of the older warframes need complete revamps to their entire kit, like Frost does, but Rhino would be a simple fix by changing one power and leaving the rest as they are.

 

Once Rhino's power is fixed, then DE can focus more on the old frames that need complete revamps.

[Ronyn]

I don't think armor alone applied to iron skin is sufficient with Rhino's current armor.  If he had as much armor as Valkyr, then yeah definitely, or even half as much armor as Valkyr and it'd still be a significant improvement.  But with base 190... it's not quite enough to measure up to Trinity's link alone, much less link+blessing, or eclipse, or shatter shield.  A better solution would be "bump Rhino's armor to 300 and then apply armor to iron skin".

I'm open to that, in fact I have been thinking that Rhinos armor base should be about 300 for a while.

My main goal at this moment though is to find the right mechanic for iron skin that we can work with.

Finding the right numerical values is something I worry about once I feel I have a mechanic that is worth fiddling with.

 

Anyway, don't discount how much armor one can get from ironclad charge.

[Bobtm]

 

 

The goal would be to get each frame to be among the best in a certain category.

For example frost and mesa play extremely differently but both are awesome in defense modes.

One blocks incoming damage, the other excels at destroying everything coming in.

The only real similarity is that they have powerful stationary skill so a stationary mode is right up their alley.

 

I feel like that is where the disconnect is. The whole idea that Rhino's all aroundness and lack of clear weakness translates to OP if his defense was top notch. Then he would become the go-to frame for everything. I just don't see that happening with good organized teams.

Other frames bring other important things to the table that rhino would still be lacking....

 

But lets try a random idea to kick around.

What if Rhinos armor rating was applied to iron skin the same way that it applies to health.

That would automatically raise the effectiveness of it by a solid degree.

Now imagine adding that with the IronClad Charge augment.

A smart rhino could barrel through multiple enemies and raise the armor effect on his iron skin to a huge degree.

That sort of thing is the kind of "skill" based mechanic I would like to play around with. 

 

 

I suppose my issue with all-rounders is that allowing them to be best in any category is counterintuitive.  They'r all-rounders who have balance amongst what they're good at.  Specialists are the ones who reach best points in their focus, while being sub-par to terrible in other realms.

 

It's not that I'm overly worried that he'd become always the best for the absurd length runs of course, even with a tougher defense one could still get better results from a properly kitted team.  It's the fact that the actual difference between how far a four Rhino team or a proper team of specialists could go.  Basically if he just had simple "mindless" DR then everyone and their grandma could make a joke of endgame areas up to too far of a point, putting us at another skewed point in blance sort of like we're at now with rampant power spamming.

 

The IS armor point is... honestly that's something I can fully get behind, it's a genuinely wicked idea in my opinion.  It promotes further synergetic relationships within Rhino's kit and that's never a bad thing at its basest form.  I also agree that focusing on mechanics first and then worrying about specific percentages later is probably the best route overall.  This concept also prevents you from entirely ignoring duration on his potential build if you want to maximize the potential of this trait.  As doing that kneecaps Charge entirely since it's distanced traveled is duration based, all in all it does in theory sound like a solid way of balancing out a way to increase Rhino's DR.

 

If we can ever reach a point where Rhino feels appropriately tanky but not, for lack of a better word, dumb in terms of the style of that tanking, it would be the nearest thing to a best possible outcome.  I haven't had time to personally mess with Ironclad Charge but I did utilize normal Charge quite a lot back when I messed around on Rhino.  With a bit of thought and positioning I'd assume you could plow through a rather lengthy crowd of targets and allow your armor rating to skyrocket.

 

Dammit... this is making me want to play Rhino as it actually adds a degree of thought to his kit.  While I've always respected why people like Rhino, I couldn't enjoy playing him ever because he doens't reward planning to the degree other frames do.  He's always had a very, very straightforward and simple kit.  Raising his personal skill cieling would be a positive thing as far as I'm concerned.

 

Lastly, I won't even try saying anything about what his armor rating should be.  That's just something that I personally don't feel like I have enough intricate knowledge on to properly discuss.  I'll leave that realm to the folks who know it.

[Holeypaladin]

So then it seems the most acceptable solution for the most people is to raise Rhino's armor to 300 and apply armor to iron skin the way it is applied to health.

 

That seems reasonable... it may still fall short of Trinity but it's a definite improvement from where it currently is at.

[Azawarau]

So then it seems the most acceptable solution for the most people is to raise Rhino's armor to 300 and apply armor to iron skin the way it is applied to health.

 

That seems reasonable... it may still fall short of Trinity but it's a definite improvement from where it currently is at.

Raising his armor to 300 is definitely the right move

 

Applying it to iron skin im iffy about with the numbers but its probably also a good move

[Vitalis_Inamorta]

I ought to also add that not only is Rhino MORE immune to CC than Trinity (he ignores grineer magnetic doors for one, there are a couple of others that don't pop immediately to mind), but Trinity' link has a major downside, that being that as soon as Trinity isn't linked to something... all that 75% damage reduction and CC resistance goes away instantly.  Yes, that's right, nullifiers are j erks.  It's a conditional resistance, much like Mirage's albeit with much less strict conditions.

 

Rhino's IS is not conditional, and he straight up doesn't need buffing.  He's already one of the CC kings, for Stomp alone, and, with the addition of all the "selfish" damage buffers lately (Mirage/Limbo/Mesa) his Roar distinctly jumped into the upper half of damage buffing abilities as well.  His IS in excellent, because it protects him from the CCs that result in instant death for many other frames (chiefly Mirage and Mesa, since they are either position-based or not resistant to melee).  Yes, it can't soak up a lot of damage, but in skilled hands, you don't take any damage outside of getting CC'd anyways.

 

I'm going to say it once.  Iron Skin IS, along with Roar and Stomp, the reason skilled players use Rhino, not to face tank, but to survive that CC or proc or three that would have outright resulted in the instant violent death of 85% of the other frames in the game.

[sanj66]

I ought to also add that not only is Rhino MORE immune to CC than Trinity (he ignores grineer magnetic doors for one, there are a couple of others that don't pop immediately to mind), but Trinity' link has a major downside, that being that as soon as Trinity isn't linked to something... all that 75% damage reduction and CC resistance goes away instantly.  Yes, that's right, nullifiers are j erks.  It's a conditional resistance, much like Mirage's albeit with much less strict conditions.

 

Rhino's IS is not conditional, and he straight up doesn't need buffing.  He's already one of the CC kings, for Stomp alone, and, with the addition of all the "selfish" damage buffers lately (Mirage/Limbo/Mesa) his Roar distinctly jumped into the upper half of damage buffing abilities as well.  His IS in excellent, because it protects him from the CCs that result in instant death for many other frames (chiefly Mirage and Mesa, since they are either position-based or not resistant to melee).  Yes, it can't soak up a lot of damage, but in skilled hands, you don't take any damage outside of getting CC'd anyways.

 

I'm going to say it once.  Iron Skin IS, along with Roar and Stomp, the reason skilled players use Rhino, not to face tank, but to survive that CC or proc or three that would have outright resulted in the instant violent death of 85% of the other frames in the game.

rhino is not a cc king, dont fool people, there are numerous frames that cc better than rhino, his cc even has power in use, something other cc frames do not and can spam cc all day long as long as they have energy. also i can tell you from playing but i rarely see anyone playing rhino or even prime in almost every mission i am in void, archwing or starchart. you also completely missed the point most people were discussing, which was why do support frames and a berserker out tank the tank. also with the static non scaling of is you do know 1 shot from a bombard at level 35 will drop an iron skin outside of full strength build using BR, and if thats the way you go you wont have roar available to matter as your duration would be under 6 seconds. most people agreed that iron skin is not good the way it is, what differed mainly was how to make it good.

[RealPandemonium]

For the record 300 armor is 50% damage reduction, which means EHP = HP * 2.  Making armor affect IS and giving Rhino 300 armor would double IS's value, and that's before Steel Fiber.

[Vitalis_Inamorta]

rhino is not a cc king, dont fool people, there are numerous frames that cc better than rhino, his cc even has power in use, something other cc frames do not and can spam cc all day long as long as they have energy. also i can tell you from playing but i rarely see anyone playing rhino or even prime in almost every mission i am in void, archwing or starchart. you also completely missed the point most people were discussing, which was why do support frames and a berserker out tank the tank. also with the static non scaling of is you do know 1 shot from a bombard at level 35 will drop an iron skin outside of full strength build using BR, and if thats the way you go you wont have roar available to matter as your duration would be under 6 seconds. most people agreed that iron skin is not good the way it is, what differed mainly was how to make it good.

 

Rhino IS a CC king, just not a CC god.  The only frames that can match or outdo him for large radial CC are banshee/loki/nova/oberon/nyx 5 frames out of more than 20, putting him firmly in the top 75%.  He's a cc king, face it.  No frame has absolutely perfect cc for every situation (before the power in use and nullifiers on rhino's stomp, HE did though, and it was broken).

 

Loki is a 1.5-2 second stun and then they are melee.  Banshee is a 1.5-2 second stun and then they are fully as capable as before, unless she literally locks herself down by channeling a stagger to them.  Nova is only a strong slow.  Oberon is about 2 seconds of total CC at higher levels, because no one dies and no one else is blinded.  Nyx has power in use too, and Mirage doesn't count, because it literally takes her more than 2 full seconds to cast hers.  Excalibur also doesn't count because his no longer penetrates walls.

 

Support frames and berserker don't out-tank the tank, and he's not a tank to begin with.  he's a heavy, bulky, supposed-to-be-slow frame (that isn't slow at all), there's nothing anywhere that says he's the one true tank.  Frost doesn't have any immunity to damage, neither does Saryn.  The closest we've ever had is old trinity before the blessing nerf, and current valkyr, but valkyr eats a nerf everytime she casts Hysteria, and Trinity already ate hers.  Mirage can't use hers in the vast majority of playable space, and is still CC vunlerable.  Mesa's is projectile only, and she's still CC vulnerable.  I didn't miss the point, I corrected the ahh... people like yourself attempting to get an already powerful frame buffed through pure illogic and stupidity.

 

No one cares what people use for a frame in archwing, the frame abilites no longer do anything, and the stats no longer carry over, so don't bring irrelevant things in.  If you don't see rhinos in void, it's because you don't play void, I average one every 1-2 missions, and often have two which means he gets somewhere between 12.5 and 25% of the frameage in the void from what I see,  probably closer to 25%.  THERE'RE FRICKEN 22 different frames now, the average for 4-man missions ought to be 18.2%, so if anything, he's overused.

 

I know that one shot from a bombard at level 35 will take my Trinity's full health bar, and a bit of the energy with quick thinking.  With link up and attached it takes the shields off almost perfectly, meaning about 1,200 damage, and meaning that you saying that one shot will take out ironskin is complete and utter bullS#&amp;&#036;, it would take at least 2, three if you used any power strength AT ALL beyond intensify.  Also, bombard shots are very easily avoided if you pay attention, duck behind walls, copter past them, stomp the bombard, charge the bombard, or just flipping kill them.  Oh right, you ran out of ammo on your boltor prime due to spamming, my bad.

 

Most people did not agree.  That's called a bandwagon fallacy.  It'd be more accurate to say that most RHINO MAINS AGREED.  Obviously they want buffs.  No, rhino isn't a pure tank,  No, he's not the main tank.  In the beginning, him and frost were tanks, and mag was a shield tank, and trinity was a heal tank.  Then Saryn came along and she was a health tank, and valkyr came and was a health and shield tank, then ember came and was an overheat (caster) tank, then got nerfed.  Then Zephyr came along and was a bird tank, but buggy.  Then Mirage came along and was a jack of all trades glass-cannon frame, and couldn't find any shadows to hide in, and lost half of her damage buff when she did.  Then Mesa came along and was like Zephyr 2.0, only less bugged and with less CC... ...than Mirage OR Zephyr.  Then loki was a decoy-tank again, because loki master race.

 

Long story short, about 9 of the frames in the game have not been tanks at any point.  That's quite easily less than half.  Given this, you really shouldn't be surprised, that out of the other 12 frames, about 3 can out-tank rhino.  He's old, other frames can now do similar, and yet not better (if you were any good at playing the game) - due to no CC immunity - things.  Get.  Used.  To.  It.

 

The instant you gain damage scaling/buffing abilities is the same instant you can no longer be the tankiest tank, who is probably valkyr atm, or maybe limbo (evade tank? Warp tank {he's not actually there but looks like he is and enemies attack the spot}?)  Limbo has to bring enemies into his realm, at which point he trades away tankiness to them for a knockdown and maybe a selfish damage buff, if he cast it.  Valkyr is only melee, and her buff only works for melee.  Surprise, they both have major handicaps that rhino doesn't.

 

Rhino's iron skin is fine, and if it gets damage reduction, it needs to be capped at 90% max, and lose every single point of absorb, as well as the CC immunity.  It also needs to cost at least 50 energy, and last no longer than 15-20 maxed rank and unmodded.  The reason for the 90% is because the other reductioneers have about half the innate tankiness stats, so 90% for him is the same as 95% for them.  The reason for the loss of cc immunity is because they don't get it either.  The reason for the increased cost is because they also pay it.

[geninrising]

Rhino IS a CC king, just not a CC god.  The only frames that can match or outdo him for large radial CC are banshee/loki/nova/oberon/nyx 5 frames out of more than 20, putting him firmly in the top 75%.  He's a cc king, face it.  No frame has absolutely perfect cc for every situation (before the power in use and nullifiers on rhino's stomp, HE did though, and it was broken).

 

Loki is a 1.5-2 second stun and then they are melee.  Banshee is a 1.5-2 second stun and then they are fully as capable as before, unless she literally locks herself down by channeling a stagger to them.  Nova is only a strong slow.  Oberon is about 2 seconds of total CC at higher levels, because no one dies and no one else is blinded.  Nyx has power in use too, and Mirage doesn't count, because it literally takes her more than 2 full seconds to cast hers.  Excalibur also doesn't count because his no longer penetrates walls.

 

Support frames and berserker don't out-tank the tank, and he's not a tank to begin with.  he's a heavy, bulky, supposed-to-be-slow frame (that isn't slow at all), there's nothing anywhere that says he's the one true tank.  Frost doesn't have any immunity to damage, neither does Saryn.  The closest we've ever had is old trinity before the blessing nerf, and current valkyr, but valkyr eats a nerf everytime she casts Hysteria, and Trinity already ate hers.  Mirage can't use hers in the vast majority of playable space, and is still CC vunlerable.  Mesa's is projectile only, and she's still CC vulnerable.  I didn't miss the point, I corrected the ahh... people like yourself attempting to get an already powerful frame buffed through pure illogic and stupidity.

 

No one cares what people use for a frame in archwing, the frame abilites no longer do anything, and the stats no longer carry over, so don't bring irrelevant things in.  If you don't see rhinos in void, it's because you don't play void, I average one every 1-2 missions, and often have two which means he gets somewhere between 12.5 and 25% of the frameage in the void from what I see,  probably closer to 25%.  THERE'RE FRICKEN 22 different frames now, the average for 4-man missions ought to be 18.2%, so if anything, he's overused.

 

I know that one shot from a bombard at level 35 will take my Trinity's full health bar, and a bit of the energy with quick thinking.  With link up and attached it takes the shields off almost perfectly, meaning about 1,200 damage, and meaning that you saying that one shot will take out ironskin is complete and utter bullS#&$, it would take at least 2, three if you used any power strength AT ALL beyond intensify.  Also, bombard shots are very easily avoided if you pay attention, duck behind walls, copter past them, stomp the bombard, charge the bombard, or just flipping kill them.  Oh right, you ran out of ammo on your boltor prime due to spamming, my bad.

 

Most people did not agree.  That's called a bandwagon fallacy.  It'd be more accurate to say that most RHINO MAINS AGREED.  Obviously they want buffs.  No, rhino isn't a pure tank,  No, he's not the main tank.  In the beginning, him and frost were tanks, and mag was a shield tank, and trinity was a heal tank.  Then Saryn came along and she was a health tank, and valkyr came and was a health and shield tank, then ember came and was an overheat (caster) tank, then got nerfed.  Then Zephyr came along and was a bird tank, but buggy.  Then Mirage came along and was a jack of all trades glass-cannon frame, and couldn't find any shadows to hide in, and lost half of her damage buff when she did.  Then Mesa came along and was like Zephyr 2.0, only less bugged and with less CC... ...than Mirage OR Zephyr.  Then loki was a decoy-tank again, because loki master race.

 

Long story short, about 9 of the frames in the game have not been tanks at any point.  That's quite easily less than half.  Given this, you really shouldn't be surprised, that out of the other 12 frames, about 3 can out-tank rhino.  He's old, other frames can now do similar, and yet not better (if you were any good at playing the game) - due to no CC immunity - things.  Get.  Used.  To.  It.

 

The instant you gain damage scaling/buffing abilities is the same instant you can no longer be the tankiest tank, who is probably valkyr atm, or maybe limbo (evade tank? Warp tank {he's not actually there but looks like he is and enemies attack the spot}?)  Limbo has to bring enemies into his realm, at which point he trades away tankiness to them for a knockdown and maybe a selfish damage buff, if he cast it.  Valkyr is only melee, and her buff only works for melee.  Surprise, they both have major handicaps that rhino doesn't.

 

Rhino's iron skin is fine, and if it gets damage reduction, it needs to be capped at 90% max, and lose every single point of absorb, as well as the CC immunity.  It also needs to cost at least 50 energy, and last no longer than 15-20 maxed rank and unmodded.  The reason for the 90% is because the other reductioneers have about half the innate tankiness stats, so 90% for him is the same as 95% for them.  The reason for the loss of cc immunity is because they don't get it either.  The reason for the increased cost is because they also pay it.

This is the most reasoned response to this conversation yet, although admittedly he was simply re-iterating alll of the responses that thought negatively of OP's proposal.

 

At least he condensed it into a single post, bringing us to the conclusion that we all pretty much understood would be the outcome of a community driven response.

[Holeypaladin]

Ok... a lot of ad hominem fallacies... and pointing out that of the 6 frames possessing CC abilities, Rhino is number 6, and of all the frames possessing damage reduction powers, Rhino is the weakest.

 

So it's exactly the same arguments I'm made and yet... somehow that's supposed to prove that Rhino DOESN'T need an iron skin improvement rather than showing that he does?

 

Yeah... all arguments invalid.  Jack of all trade means sucks at all trades.  Every warframe in the game, and I mean EVERY ONE, needs something that they positively EXCELL at.  There is nothing that Rhino is particularly spectacular at, only a few things he's half decent at.  That makes for a half decent frame, not an excellent one.

 

That, plus the fact that Mr. Ad Hominem up there completely ignored the fact that Lotus kept describing Rhino as a tank in her little presentation of him.  Used just about every synonym of tank I can think of in that short video, too.

[Vitalis_Inamorta]

For the record, armor works like this:  (100+Armor)/100 = number the incoming damage is divided by.  300 armor is actually 75% damage reduction.  630 armor with full Steel Fiber is 86.3% damage reduction.  Hell freaking no.  Not unless the iron skin health is reduced to like 300 (~2,200 EHP JUST on the iron skin health, ~6200 with full power strength, just on the IS health), otherwise someone would put full power strength on again and have flipping 25k EHP to work with, just on iron skin, which would mean his IS got buffed by like 8x instead of the ~2-3x this is already.

 

I'd be okay if the armor applied to his shields once the IS health was popped, but the duration on that would need to be no more than 20s max rank unmodded, for a cost of 50 energy.

 

Maybe make it combined, no timer until the IS health is gone, and then it applies to his shields (since it already applies to his health) for a duration of 10s unmodified, to give him time to recast his IS if he wants to.

 

This basically doubles his health from an IS standpoint, for the low low cost of trading out his power strength mods for Steel Fiber, which makes a lot of sense if you ACTUALLY want a tank.  On top of that, he could STILL go power strength to increase that to 15.5k EHP on the IS health, but that would be overkill, and inefficienct, as it OUGHT to be on a "tank".  He's still got 450 base shields, now with 86% damage resist, meaning they have ~3250 EHP.  Add in a redirection for another ~4,000 EHP on the shield, and that ought to be more than enough, way way more than enough.

[Holeypaladin]

From the wiki:

 

An armor value of 300 will divide the gross damage by ( 1 + 300 / 300 ) = ( 1 + 1 ) = 2, so only half of the gross damage is inflicted as net damage. At 900 armor, damage is divided by 4, so only a fourth of the gross damage is inflicted as net damage, and so on. 

 

So you're wrong.

 

Essentially Armor got heavily nerfed at some point.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Holeypaladin

[geninrising]

The entire point I think is the fact that everything works well enough until it's NOT SUPPOSED TO.

 

A change for your specific Frame that would kind of go against the design implementation of every other skill(except maybe Loki Disarm=infinitely useful) would be harmful to the game and possibly cause a surge of more p#2w players and this is already being combated in various ways.

 

There is not a reason right now to buff Rhino's IS considering his overall play time and his awesome mobility/damage buffing/CCing.

 

They will not buff him for one trick pony players that sacrifice everything for one skill. They want players to utilize a single skill LESS not more, hence why they re-balanced his kit to begin with.

[Ronyn]

Alright. I don't care about all the flexing, arguing and exaggerations that get thrown around in this thread....

Let's get to the point.

 

Let's face it, yes, Rhino is mediocre, and not excellent, due to his jack of all trades nature.  If he becomes excellent at one thing (iron skin) he's going to have to lose most of the rest of it,

This right here....is an argument against itself.

If Rhino is mediocre currently, gaining a thing to excel in should make him top tier. (Ideally all frames would be top tier but not op)

There should be no need for him to loose most of the rest of his kit. So let us stop with that line of argument.

That in mind, bringing iron skin up to a point where it is a more effective tanking skill for end game...

should be just fine. The question should be exactly how. 

 

There is no reason to discount his original design intent just because the game has grown and changed. None at all.

By all rights and purposes the expectation should be that the old frames get refreshed along with the game so they retain their identity and purpose.

In this case Rhino is not that far off as long as he gets a minor improvement to IS and the other frames that are currently too resistant get toned down a bit.

 

Let's all take it down a notch guys.