Ember Changes [Post 15.11.0 Megathread]

[Brozime]

So since these recent Ember changes I've been trying to use Ember again.

 

 

Even with these recent buffs Ember in my opinion is still very ineffective and really needs a defensive skill that she can rely on and with her 4 still taking duration into account it is still just as pitiful as before.  Maybe I'm just using the wrong builds here though.  Have you guys had any luck making Ember good since the update?

[Imaru]

Why is this in GD not Warfames and Ability Feedback?

[Brozime]

Why is this in GD not Warfames and Ability Feedback?

I'm looking for general discussion about building Ember well since she's been buffed.  I'm planning to make a different post in feedback after playing Ember more.

[Naftal]

I'm looking for general discussion about building Ember well since she's been buffed.  I'm planning to make a different post in feedback after playing Ember more.

Then this should be in players helping players.

 

And the feedback should in the megathread.

[Brozime]

Then this should be in players helping players.

 

And the feedback should in the megathread.

Players helping players would be if I was asking for direct help.  I'm looking to basically compare notes with other players as to how they've been trying to play Ember

[Nakimato]

If it is in a wrong place then a Comunity Moderator will switch it.

 

To come back to your topic you wanna have a discussion about.

The Ember "buff" isn't really a buff.

 

You can  say that her Stamina, Armor, Movement Speed and the 3 Skill of her become buffed

 

Her ultimate WoF had to take a hard nerf on it.

ATM it isn't worth playing Ember from my view. If they would change the Ultimate back without Energy drain

(because toggle is really useless when you have a fix duration it is the same thing on Mirages Prisma)

 

Or if they erase the fact that the ultimate depending on duration and just make it last as long as you have Energy

(in this case toggle is nice)

then we can talk again about Ember.

 

Until then i personally store her and let her collect some dust because there are 21 other frames that are better than her for any kind of mission.

 

Edit:

there is a Megathread about the Ember changes

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/388985-ember-changes-post-15110-megathread/

Edited January 22, 2015 by Nakimato

[Racercowboy]

So for simplicity's sake I am going to begin placing a summary of all feedback on a per page basis.

 

Consensus is that DE should remove duration from WOF. Additionally increase target cap or remove said cap.

 

Additional thoughts are that Fireblast negates it's own effectiveness due to blowing enemy AI away from the circle and then enemy AI purposefully stays out of it thereby negating any of the remaining damage for it's duration.

 

Pretty much my thoughts (along with other very frustrated, negative thoughts that I will keep to myself) on ember's changes. Although I do have one more....

 

WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THINGS HOLY DOES FIREBLAST'S DAMAGE OVER TIME STILL NOT HIT IN THE CENTER AREA OF THE RING.

 

If they simply did this along with making fire blast affected by range the skill would actually be worth it's 75 energy cost. currently, Sonic Boom does just as well as fireblast, and for less energy.

 

I honestly do not mind the stat changes, but one must ask does DE really want to stick to their claim about ember being a "Damage Caster"? If she's supposed to deal lots of damage, then please, give her the means to do so, and do not limit her from doing it versus other frames. For goodness sakes, I can make a better Damage Caster build on FROST then I can on ember. Frost, being part tank, does not have limitations in how many enemies his skills can hit aside from the natural ones placed into the game. Ember, on the other hand, is litterally HARD CODED to not hit more than 3 enemies with WoF and Fireblast does not hit in the center area of it's ring, which I have yet to see a valid, logical explanation from anybody on why this is! No other frame in the game has such limitations on dealing damage other than ember, it's no wonder people keep complaining!

 

Please, lets stop ignoring the real issues and actually address them.

[swihart91]

So many ember threads its almost as bad as valkyr is mesa, make it stop :(

[ChameleonDude]

Personally, I'd like to see:

 

1) Fireball be given fire hazards, like napalms. We don't want it being overpowered... but useful would be nice.

 

2) Merge Accelerant / Fire Blast. Enemies avoid the ring of fire, so that may as well be removed. Have the eximus-like radial attack deal a bit more damage and have a greater crowd control effect, enemies debuffed by the Accelerant part depending on their distance from you.

 

3) Use the freed up slot for a survivability/self energy restore skill. Ember is a damage frame, but she needs something else.

 

4) Rework World on Fire - again. It was a lovely thought, but it's still inferior to so many other skills. I know comparing skills from separate frames isn't really fair - but compare the frames as a whole and Ember just falls short. Take Saryn for example - tankier, survivability skill, useful status procs and Miasma is a quick, strong damage skill. We don't want them to be the same, but removing World on Fire's weird initial cost/drain/maximum duration thing would be a good start. I'd say remove the maximum duration, have duration mods instead affect the rate of energy drain or the frequency of the explosions/eruptions and reduce the energy drain rate slightly. Not overpowered, but usable.

 

5) When passives are added, please allow Ember to deal bonus damage (abilities, primaries, secondaries, melee - everything) to burning targets (affected by fire procs). This would make all of her abilities useful and let her scale as a whole.

 

I'm sure some of the ideas seem like they're going a bit too far - but look at the majority of other frames and high level enemies. Ember doesn't have things such as magnetic, corrosive, viral, radiation procs; strong survivability, strong utility or decent crowd control. She exists to deal damage and make enemies more vulnerable to her damage type - and she doesn't even do that very well. Ember Prime is by far my favourite frame, all I want is to be able to use her without thinking "I could just be playing Nova (or Mesa, or Saryn, or Mag, etc)". I'm grateful for the buff we've received, I really am - but it just wasn't close and didn't cover the major issues with Ember as a frame.

Edited January 22, 2015 by ChameleonDude

[BarneyD2]

I found out through a few runs on Kappa that if fire blast initial slam procs fire, the enemy are not knocked back by the radial expansion. The fire proc provides nowhere near as much cc by itself and I don't think this effect is intentional.

[Cleesus]

Merged similar threads

[SasAlexander]

So, I tried out the new Ember with friends, in an Orokin Derelict Survival. She was lvl 18 thanks to giving her 2nd forma. That was the only game I went with her, so I don't have feedback from Grineer/Corpus maps.

 

Armor buff: It's welcomed. Really. There were a few times I was near death, before my Trinity friend used his ult. I think without this, I would have died more.

 

Speed and stamina buff: Didn't run around that much. But, if I think about it, maybe I was definitely faster, even without Rush.

 

Fire blast: It was a total lifesaver, infested flying around after the blast. It felt more useful.

 

World on Fire: As I said, Ember was lvl 18, WoF leveled up during the mission, didn't have much mods, so it didn't felt different. But, later it will have problems.

 

So, I still say that Fire Blast should knock down enemies instead of knock back, WoF without duration limit and/or hitting more enemies (limitless, or with limit, but scaling with power strenght), and Overheat, or at least some DR, or more armor using Accelerant.

[DerMaulwurf]

First, I changed my build

Since increased duration now effectively increases the energy cost of WoF and the other abilities never really needed it, I went for Effciency instead (keeping Duration at -25%). Has the added benefit on not being locked out of energy regen for too long. More frequent casts somewhat cancelled by the faster cast animation. New Fire Blast appears to be a solid ability. But for me the main improvement is being able to cast Accelerant more often. All in all an improvement for me, since I can now build with one stat less.

 

The armor buff doesn't really matter much. If you get knocked down/staggered, high level enemies are still likely to kill you. Otherwise no big change. Cheaper Accelerant does much more for my survivability.

 

Speed changes are solid, but also not really a game changer.

 

In total I think that the changes have made Ember stronger, mostly because you don't need to build for Duration anymore. But relative to other frames she's still behind Sarin and not even in the ballpark of Nova. So things haven't changed much.

 

Summary: slight buff, frame still squarely in 'meh' territory

Edited January 22, 2015 by DerMaulwurf

[MrNonApplicable]

So a hotfix went live with this:

 

• Ember is now able to gain energy from Team Energy Restore items while her World on Fire Ability is toggled on. Please note Energy Orbs should be working as well. Our tests confirm Energy Orb pickups give the expected energy to Ember while World-on-Fire is active, if you encounter an issue where this isn’t the case please outline the repro specifics in the appropriate bug sub-forum.
• Ember’s World on Fire will immediately hit up to five targets on initial cast.
• Ember’s World on Fire will now drain energy after casting has been completed, and not during cast.  Energy drain will deactivate the moment the Ability has been toggled off, regardless of animation state.
• Ember’s World on Fire will now prioritize targets on activation.  Higher priority will be given to targets that pose the most immediate threat to Ember, such as not under any Crowd Control or within close range.
• Ember’s World on Fire will now have an increased chance to proc fire damage on enemies (chance increased by strength mods).

This barely touches on the issues given by the community so far. Hopefully this is just day 1 changes after her buff and more will follow.
I still don't understand why an enemy cap is being worried about so much, it still does low damage without accelerant. It's not like it's gonna burn through crowds with ease.

Edited January 22, 2015 by MrNonApplicable

[geninrising]

Ok so for my full 2 cents on the topic.

All testing was performed SOLO so that none of the damage/kills could be attributed to me because of someone else's help or interactions.

A frame must be viable in their role unaided otherwise it may mean they are not viable.

Tested in both ODS and T4S.

ODS is relatively fine EXCEPT for the WOF cost. Currently there is no way to ensure that WOF is a viable prospect due to the fact that it costs more than any other AOE ultimate that has a single function(here we cannot count Mirage/blind or Nyx/absorb and infinitely scaling damage). Unfortunately it puts her in a severely awkward position with regards to her entire kit being predicated on application of her Accelerant in order to do modest amounts of damage. So she is stuck without her ultimate or without accelerant.

T4S absolute utter nonsense. Her damage is outscaled exceedingly fast and her kit requires constant application of accelerant. In addition in order to be able to utilize accelerant properly it must be spammable and have a half decent duration otherwise it forces even more spam to be useful.

Therefore a fleeting streamline build is absolutely necessary. Also without investing at least one mod slot for power strength her accelerant does not even bring ANY of her skills up to an even passable damage rating.

Therefore we currently have 3 of 8 mod Slots NECESSARY to her build. Now lets review some other facts. Fleeting Expertise is a required mod in her build due to the unfortunate need to synergize Accelerant with everything to even make it viable, in order to then leave accelerant in a usable state it is necessary that we offset the negative of Fleeting with a duration mod. At this point IF you have Primed continuity this can be accomplished in one mod, if not it requires both continuity and constituion. IF you do not have those you must use Narrow minded.

If you use narrowminded that must be countered by stretch.

So that is 4 possibly 6 mods NECESSARY to even utilize her kit in a small area. Beyond that we will say you must use a guaranteed 1 survivability mod to make it viable at all for nearly any content beyond Mercury/Venus/Earth.

So that's 5-7 mods depending on what you MUST do to make her usable at all. So now we area at a crossroads with the only real decisions we have in the modding of this frame we currently have 3 or possibly even 1 mod that we actually have a choice on due to her broken statistical reliance. Do we want any power str at all? Because that is not included in our build yet, we must make a decision. 30% or perhaps 55%? oh wait duration is necessary to her kit, welp Transient fortitude is out the window. Hey how about blind rage? Oh wait, that takes away efficiency, well efficiency is necessary to her kit and if we lose it we lose ACCESS to her powers in exchange for efficacy of said powers. so it looks like the only thing we can really put in without killing our build entirely is Intensify. Ooh that's another non-choice in our build.

Now we are at 6 mods or a full build that are NECESSARY non negotiable attributes she must have to have even a small amount of effectiveness. Small as in AOE, damage and range.

So even with casting speed increase she nearly dies when casting WOF without the absolute best possible positioning, so SOME of our players are lucky enough to have 2 slots left, I guess SOME of our players should be able to still fit in a natural Talent to reduce the casting time to an effective speed.

Finally the last mod for those that had spare room left, currently we are at 7 mods for an effective build without any specialization at all and no option of doing so without creating greatly detrimental effects within said build. our last choice is mostly one of two things as I can see, we get us a flow to be able t o rely on our powers a bit more or we get ourselves a Steel fiber(which actually helps on her now) or we could hurt our build with an overextended at this point and utterly knock our power strength down beyond usable. Meh your choice.

All in all Ember is nearly unusable and has been for a long time. You'll notice I said NEARLY. Melee Ember fairs quite well except for the fact that she is still too squishee to be a melee oriented bruiser. Her kit has almost no room for choice or variation if you want the kit as a whole to operate meaningfully.

Further changes must be made as this did nothing but give her Fireblast a gimmicky trait and utterly devastate her WOF's usefulness(which is saying something considering the sad said said ability has been in since it was first MESSED WITH)

Edited January 22, 2015 by geninrising

[Ryjeon]

Accelerant is my favorite ability in the game. With Accelerant Ember is my goto frame for leveling un-supercharged equipment. I can put only a heat damage mod on a weapon and the 400%-600% damage increase from accelerant keeps my damage strong up to 35 minutes or wave 25 Saturn even on an unranked melee weapon. People are saying it should be removed and her abilities damage increased to compensate. There is no way that this wouldn't be a significant overall damage decrease. Ember would lose the multiplicative power strength scaling which accelerant supports, and she would lose the buff to her weapons that makes her a more versatile frame than just an ability spammer. Accelerant's on-demand area crowd control is vastly more useful protecting the whole team than an iron-skin clone like overheat.

 

If Accelerant was removed I would stop playing my favorite frame.

 

As for World on Fire. Prior to to the change I rarely used the ability. But I was experimenting with duration builds and found it somewhat interesting. Post changes I hoped that I would be able to run my usual strong high-cc high weapon damage blind-rage+fleeting expertise build and add World on Fire to my combat output in order to put me on par with other significant damage frames like Ash, Nova, and Mesa, and Exspamibur. But as it still has the same duration limitations I see no difference from it's usefulness prior to the change.

 

Ultimately the changes to Ember are nice but are not enough to elevate her past the stigma of "unviable" in the playerbase's eyes.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Ryjeon

[VampirePirate]

Overheat was a defensive skill with a minute aoe fire damage. It gave Ember 95% damage reduction from all sources. Which was what consequently allowed her to be a close range fire frame.

So if Ember gets reverted back to how she was originally, would she still be too overpowered even with all the recent changes to the game?

[geninrising]

So if Ember gets reverted back to how she was originally, would she still be too overpowered even with all the recent changes to the game?

Not at all with the scope of the game in it's current form.

[VampirePirate]

Not at all with the scope of the game in it's current form.

I figured that.  Thanks.

[traybong111]

So after the hotfix, WoF is still limited by target cap and pathetic duration.

Really? 5 targets on initial cast??

*Flips tables*

[geninrising]

Accelerant is my favorite ability in the game. With Accelerant Ember is my goto frame for leveling un-supercharged equipment. I can put only a heat damage mod on a weapon and the 400%-600% damage increase from accelerant keeps my damage strong up to 35 minutes or wave 25 even on an unranked melee weapon. People are saying it should be removed and her abilities damage increased to compensate. There is no way that this wouldn't be a significant overall damage decrease. Ember would lose the multiplicative power strength scaling which accelerant supports, and she would lose the buff to her weapons that makes her a more versatile frame than just an ability spammer. Accelerant's on-demand area crowd control is vastly more useful protecting the whole team than an iron-skin clone like overheat.

 

If Accelerant was removed I would stop playing my favorite frame.

I agree. That it is the only ability in her kit that synergizes well and performs a necessary function for Ember. Provides GUARANTEED  CC. Thus my previous suggestion to bring back Overheat in place of her fireblast as it is a gimmicky ability with broken mechanics due to AI being aware of it's existence and often just avoiding it entirely. I proposed Overheat replace Fireblast as a 50%flat DR not affected by duration at all so that no matter how you decide to play this CASTER frame she has some DR to keep her in a target's face.

 

That way we maintain Accelerant with it's damage boost and guaranteed CC(I cannot stress how much she needs this , her ult already has to deal with RNG, picking targets)AND we now have an ability designed to ensure we survive while we apply our damage over time style.

 

OR if we don't get overheat back GIVE US THE OLD WOF. IT worked and as far as today's standards it is not OP.

Edited January 22, 2015 by geninrising

[Ryjeon]

I agree. That it is the only ability in her kit that synergizes well and performs a necessary function for Ember. Provides GUARANTEED  CC. Thus my previous suggestion to bring back Overheat in place of her fireblast as it is a gimmicky ability with broken mechanics due to AI being aware of it's existence and often just avoiding it entirely. I proposed Overheat replace Fireblast as a 50%flat DR not affected by duration at all so that no matter how you decide to play this CASTER frame she has some DR to keep her in a target's face.

 

That way we maintain Accelerant with it's damage boost and guaranteed CC(I cannot stress how much she needs this , her ult already has to deal with RNG, picking targets)AND we now have an ability designed to ensure we survive while we apply our damage over time style.

 

OR if we don't get overheat back GIVE US THE OLD WOF. IT worked and as far as today's standards it is not OP.

 

I think the old the Overheat effect would be a good addition to World on Fire. Then it would have a cost reflective of it's power.  And would support WoF's direction as a strong situational ability rather than a weaker on all the time ability. The Overheat effect's short range damage aura could be a nice bit of persistent damage coverage in addition to WoF's current scattered blasts. THis way they can reintroduce Overheat's visual effects to Ember as well. Which is something I miss more than then the mitigation itself.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Ryjeon

[RealPandemonium]

I think it would be better to have WoF completely unaffected by duration. 

Being affected by duration is a good thing; it just needs to be a plus instead of a must.

 

I found out through a few runs on Kappa that if fire blast initial slam procs fire, the enemy are not knocked back by the radial expansion. The fire proc provides nowhere near as much cc by itself and I don't think this effect is intentional.

The initial blast is supposed to 100% proc fire.  The proc provides good cc as the enemies flail for several seconds instead of just getting up after the knockdown the flame wave provides.  The Flame wave shouldn't mess with the way pre-change Fire Blast worked.

 

I think the old the Overheat effect would be a good addition to World on Fire. Then it would have a cost reflective of it's power.  And would support WoF's direction as a strong situational ability rather than a weaker on all the time ability. The Overheat effect's short range damage aura could be a nice bit of persistent damage coverage in addition to WoF's current scattered blasts. THis way they can reintroduce Overheat's visual effects to Ember as well. Which is something I miss more than then the mitigation itself.

I've been saying that we should get a reduced Overheat effect when we're in the Fire Blast ring with WoF active.  Combined with my previous fix proposal this would knock away undesired enemies and allow you to deal with your enemies of choice, up close and personal.  

[(PSN)DanceOnUrGav3]

WoF aside, how are her increased stats working out? Have they had a major impact on your builds? 

[RealPandemonium]

WoF aside, how are her increased stats working out? Have they had a major impact on your builds? 

Not really.  The melee LifeStrike+QT+Rage build is better due to the armor and the movement speed increase helps newer players respond better to danger.