Ember Changes [Post 15.11.0 Megathread]

[Azawarau]

We just need the option of longer WoF if we want it and for Fire Blast to be fixed as per my suggestion in this thread: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/389108-fire-blast-flame-wave-knocks-enemies-out-of-the-ring/.  Then Ember will have no hitches as well as potentially being EZmode (which I'm not thrilled about but w/e) for the afkframe players.

So you think a full toggle would make her too powerful?

 

That wouldnt be as much of an issue if she didnt get that armor increase

[Naftal]

The biggest problem with Ember is that she requires Strength, Duration, Range and Efficiency to be good. This would be a fine balancing factor if she was the strongest frame there is. However there are much stronger frames like Loki and Nyx who only need 2 or 3 different stats. Then there are frames like Nova and Saryn who can get benefit from -stat.

 

Ember seriously needs to drop one of these stats. It should either be duration or range. Make her abilities have locked range so range mods and -range mods don't do anything like Mesa's Peacemaker or remove duration from WoF, make range affect Fireblast's firewall range and increase the debuff base duration of Accelerant.

 

Or, if you want to keep all 4 stats relevant to her, you need to buff her damage and CC A LOT so this modding restriction would make sense compared to other frames.

Edited January 23, 2015 by Naftal

[RealPandemonium]

So you think a full toggle would make her too powerful?

 

That wouldnt be as much of an issue if she didnt get that armor increase

Full toggle would be fine, with duration boosting efficiency as I described earlier (although with the new WoF behavior that might be a little stupid.)

 

The biggest problem with Ember is that she requires Strength, Duration, Range and Efficiency to be good. This would be a fine balancing factor if she was the strongest frame there is. However there are much stronger frames like Loki and Nyx who only need 2 or 3 different stats. Then there are frames like Nova and Saryn who can get benefit from -stat.

 

Ember seriously needs to drop one of these stats. It should either be duration or range. Make her abilities have locked range so range mods and -range mods don't do anything like Mesa's Peacemaker or remove duration from WoF, make range affect Fireblast's firewall range and increase the debuff base duration of Accelerant.

 

Or, if you want to keep all 4 stats relevant to her, you need to buff her damage and CC A LOT so this modding restriction would make sense compared to other frames.

It's fine to be affected by duration as long as it's a plus and not a must, as it was before the changes.  Now only one duration mod is needed to make Accelerant and WoF functional, which is alright but not ideal.  Long duration builds for WoF are not possible without sucking though, which is the main problem.  They should be available at a cost (equipping duration mods would be the cost.)  Otherwise, she works better than she ever has.  

[EmptyDevil]

The biggest problem with Ember is that she requires Strength, Duration, Range and Efficiency to be good. This would be a fine balancing factor if she was the strongest frame there is. However there are much stronger frames like Loki and Nyx who only need 2 or 3 different stats. Then there are frames like Nova and Saryn who can get benefit from -stat.

 

Ember seriously needs to drop one of these stats. It should either be duration or range. Make her abilities have locked range so range mods and -range mods don't do anything like Mesa's Peacemaker or remove duration from WoF, make range affect Fireblast's firewall range and increase the debuff base duration of Accelerant.

 

Or, if you want to keep all 4 stats relevant to her, you need to buff her damage and CC A LOT so this modding restriction would make sense compared to other frames.

 

All of this.

[Aimop95]

So it sounds like DE feels fairly content with where Ember is at, that's not to say that they still won't work on her, but judging from Scotts comment's, i have my doubts.

[ThePresident777]

World on Fire used to consume base 100 energy no mater how long it ran.

 

Now it consumes  50 energy + x * (1 + duration_bonus) seconds * 5 energy / second = You pay extra for duration mods. 

 

It's expensive for very much the same thing.  It's a nerf, a big nerf, to her only saving grace.  She's still mastery fodder.

Edited January 23, 2015 by ThePresident777

[Crewell]

I've advocated the same position on Accelerant for a while. Ember needs to use it to have her powers be competative so she is at an energy disadvantage compared to other frames. As has been pointed out the toggle change is nice but part of the desire is that people wanted to save energy when combined with having to use Accelerant.

[TypeSaber]

 

So it sounds like DE feels fairly content with where Ember is at, that's not to say that they still won't work on her, but judging from Scotts comment's, i have my doubts.

 

But how can they be happy with it...Its a caster frame that cant cast and is instead used as a CC frame that runs in and Melee's or Unloading Burst weapons into their enemies. Her concept is all over the place, and she still is a worst DPS frame then every other well DPS Ability Frame. She makes for a quite great CC/Melee Bruiser frame, but is lacking the tools to do it completely. Tho might I say not having 15 armor and trying to play that style was hell. Thank you very much DE for the armor, Im surviving with much more room to spare now. (Wouldn't say no to a higher base hp pool however, being able to hit over 1k would make my life so much easier.)

I spent 20 hours experimenting yesterday with the Ember, Different setups, different balances between power/duration/range and efficiency. Which is nonsense by the way DE! *arg*. The result of this playtime was, the ult is weaker then it was before as a caster ability, but stronger in the sense of a blitzkrieg frame. With Natural Talent, Intensify and Fleeting Experience, Narrow Minded and Overextended. While I was still just using Accelerate and my weapons as per normal, I did find with accelerate and the initial 5 hit from the ult you could just use it as a expensive highDPS version of fireball since the cast time is perfect now, Until we hit wave 35 in my t3 deference. Then its damage was failing.

So yeah I change my vote from a 'remove duration' thing, keep it with the duration. Instead add a extra 5man burst of damage when it ends like how it starts, and make the damage naturally higher so it scales better 'especially considering fires type problems' that way you could mod it for duration to have longer ults, or mod it to be shorter to get the Initial and Ending burst but have to interrupt yourself more with recasting.

As a change of pace with all the negative results Fireblast was operating as a fantastic CC tool. The Fire 'Blast' was knocking things back and on their &#!, augment was panicking them,it was working essentially like a spam-able version of banshee's silence, a CC tool that you use when your overwhelmed and need some distance as well as stall time. So yeh ability working perfectly. Still does no damage, but yeh the Ember was always a CC frame since accelerate was added, so atleast to my style of play Perfect changes.

And as always I beg you DE, Just finish your work on the ember, you've made great progress but its not finished yet, Every one of the frames in this game is unique, as such they should all have a roll, at-least 1 thing they do better or on par with the best then any other frame. Ember shouldn't be a mastery and forget frame. If you just fix the embers low damage problems she would be a totally viable frame in even endless runs. She is so close to being a completed frame again. Dont send us back into the dark.

[ArbitUHM]

I've just played around a little bit on some solo T3 stuff (sabotages, exterminates, etc) and wow, Ember is fun now.  I'm using a low-ish duration build (like 7 or 8 second WoF) with +57% power strength, max efficiency, and just Stretch for range.  With this amount of power strength, up to five targets getting hit on the initial cast, plus whatever AoE the explosions have (it feels like they have AoE but I don't see any mention of it on the wiki) pretty much everything in her casting radius gets fire proc'ed. With subsequent explosions prioritizing the closest targets that are not already proc'ed, you can run around a room and everyone will be fire proc'ed, which is hilarious looking.  With the faster cast time and speed boost she got it is some good CC at 23 energy per cast with a max efficiency build.  Sets enemies up for easy point blank headshots while they are doing the oh-god-I'm-on-fire hula dance, too.

 

I'm not saying she's top tier or anything but I betting she could pull her weight in certain T4 missions.

[Ryjeon]

 

It's already amazing on defense now; enemies just burn, taking more damage than they used to and getting stuck in the flailing animation.  Ember is almost as mindless as THE BEST BUILD frames now because of it.  

 

I just want it to be strong enough not to be discouraged by hosts from playing Ember in T4s and T3s. It'll probably still happen because some people are really inflexible and want the exact same scenario every time they place. But it should be much better than before. Considering the burning procs are also consistent added damage over time we can consider the ult damage increased too depending on how the DoT is calculated.

 

And just as increased duration increases the overall cost lowering the duration makes it a less expensive cast than before the changes. Fleeting Expertise Ember feels pretty good now. I wanted a long duration toggle WoF, but I think I might be more happy with her new burst potential. Both Fire Blast and WoF feel like they activate faster so she feels much more fluid. 

Edited January 24, 2015 by Ryjeon

[Ryjeon]

(X-posted in response to an issue brought up in another thread.)

 

I just tested my WoF cast. with -55% duration and 70% Efficiency. It cost 22 energy vs the 30 it would have cost before.

 

As for it's interaction with Energy Siphon. I tested a long duration WoF with max efficiency and it appeared to cost 40 energy both with and without Energy Siphon. If it was receiving the benefit from Energy Siphon it should have been a fair bit less of a deficit at the end of the cast.  This may have been overlooked when WoF's interaction with Team Energy Restores was fixed.  It doesn't hurt the efficiency of low-duration builds too bad but it devastates the efficiency of long-duration builds post change. I'm curious if it's interaction with Energy Vampire has been fixed or is still brokenly treated like Absorb. And I'm curious if this is intended.

 

So basic cost wise, a Fleeting Expertise low-duration build will be more efficient than before. But the ability really needs to benefit from all of the team Energy restoring effects including Energy Siphon, Team Energy Restores, Energy Vampire, Syndicate Procs, Prime Death Orbs, and whatever Limbo does.

Edited January 24, 2015 by Ryjeon

[RealPandemonium]

Considering the burning procs are also consistent added damage over time we can consider the ult damage increased too depending on how the DoT is calculated.

Heat procs are 50% of the weapon's or power's base damage * base damage boost (for weapons this is serration, hornet strike, heavy caliber, and all other mods that boost base damage but not elemental, IPS, crit, etc; for powers this is power strength) applied immediately, and then that same 50% value applied every second for the next 6 seconds.  The procs also stack.

 

So, for primary weapons, a heat proc's total damage is (weapon's damage after serration and heavy caliber) * 3.5.

For powers, it's (power's damage after power strength mods)  * 3.5.

 

Slash and Toxin are similar, but slightly different.  Toxin is the same as heat but ticks 9 times instead of 7.  Slash ticks 7 times like heat but only uses 35% of the base damage instead of 50%.  The upside of Slash procs is that their damage ignores armor and shields, making it potentially much more effective than the other available damage types (especially against heavy Grineer or against Corpus when you don't have Toxin equipped.)

[(PSN)SharpWhisper]

I really like the changes to Ember and Ember Prime. I think they do a very good job at bringing Ember back into viability. I just have a few suggestion to really bring her kit together:

 

-Remove the cap duration on World on Fire (Make it just a drain energy over time ability like SoundQuake or Absorb instead of something like Prism)

 

-Make the knockback pulse on FireBlast ignore line of sight (Like the Arson Exeo fire waves)

 

This final suggestion is kinda jurastic and probably won't be accepted widely across the community but I think I should mention it anyways:

 

-Move the Ring of Fire part of Fire Blast to World on Fire (A Ring of Fire would be created where you initially cast World on Fire and would then linger there until you toggle off the ability) The rest of World on Fire would function in the same way(random explosions wherever you go)  

[-CM-Rogusdra]

Oh I wasn't calling you a liar, it just meant I never felt the duration as an issue before. I do feel it on i 

exactly the same here, i have 0 problem with prism, and ember ulti is now the same, 50 cast 5/sec aaaand it doesnt feel right, maybe because prism can hit up to 20 enemies at a time and toggling off prism actualy do something (blind enemies)

[(PSN)BossNotACapo]

Ember Prime was my third frame she was Sexy...Those hips coke bottle figure. Equipped with the Dread like Katniss the Girl On Fire. She was my favorite frame. I felt I had to pay my respects and give my condolence to the Ember family. I'm not gonna deliver the eulogy the hundreds of comments did that.

[BarneyD2]

I believe fireblast should knock back AND knock down. You know, like the Eximus units do? >>

[tris1]

fireblast: the ring should have fire inside the ring aswell. targets should get knocked over. if your inside the ring you gain somekind of benefit be it damage reduction or something else/

[DireMoose]

All I wanted was to get rid of my duration mods but no. They managed to make my everything that much worse and LEFT THE DARN TIMER ON WORLD ON FIRE. Why? Why would they do that?

[EmptyDevil]

Please for the love of all. Get rid of WoF duration timer or add an ending effect like a radial blast when the ult expires.

[RealPandemonium]

Please for the love of all. Get rid of WoF duration timer or add an ending effect like a radial blast when the ult expires.

Yeah, it should also do over 9000 damage, reach 50m, and cost 5 energy.

[EmptyDevil]

Yeah, it should also do over 9000 damage, reach 50m, and cost 5 energy.

I agree but maybe like 3000 finisher damage with burn 100% blast and burn proc. No energy cost if it's just an expiration effect like Prism's blind effect.

Edited January 24, 2015 by EmptyDevil

[Azawarau]

I agree but maybe like 3000 finisher damage with burn 100% blast and burn proc. No energy cost if it's just an expiration effect like Prism's blind effect.

Why not take that a step higher and have it tick the entire field for its current damage over its entire duration

[Kruglov]

"Ember's in a good place now."

 

DE's official response from the devstream.

 

This thread is officially useless because DE honestly believe that they made Ember good. Meanwhile Volt and even Hydroid are better than her at almost everything.

 

All is lost.

 

It's over, folks.

[ArbitUHM]

The way the ability worked previously was you just cranked duration up as high as it could go while still maintaining enough to damage to kill mid-game enemies, then you just sprint around the level instakilling everything.  It was stupid.  There was no way they were going enable that sort of strategy for higher level content, so instead they made it so you can't have WoF going 24/7 and gave it spike damage, a faster casting time, and a potent CC ability i.e. rapid-fire fire procs.  

 

Personally, I like the changes they've made.

[RealPandemonium]

Ember's biggest issue was that short-duration WoF was bad.  It's no longer bad, so technically, with a specific build Ember is undeniably good now.  It's just that long-duration WoF is still bad and at this rate will never be an option.