Ember Changes [Post 15.11.0 Megathread]

[Ryjeon]

I got an idea for accelerant, maybe it could turn armour target to flesh during the duration of the debuff. What do you think?

 

I kind of like the direction this idea is going. But it seems like it would mess with allies' damage choices. But maybe striking off the armor would make up for this.

 

Its weird to me that people would rather replace Accelerant, a hard cc with a high up time that prevents the majority of dangerous enemies from attacking both you and your teammates, with an ability that only protects Ember when she is taking hits. I think a room-wide cc ability that prevents enemy retaliation and simultaneously happens to multiply all of Ember's damage is vastly more useful. I guess it's a difference between people who like a highly active frame where you have to cast multiple abilities frequently versus those who like long duration abilities that you can set-and forget while focusing on your gunplay.  That's the only reason I can think of why some folk dislike casting 2 as much as they can.

 

Maybe my perspective is skewed by my highly specialized endgame mod selection (Fleeting expertise, Quicking Thinking, etc.). And perhaps it's when Ember is using just the entry level basic mods. (Streamline, Continuity etc.) that her skillset is not satisfying her expectations. So somehow the devs have to balance her so she's satisfying and safe to play at the entry level while not becoming overpowered or having her potential nerfed when using specialized mod sets.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Ryjeon

[DireMoose]

I still think everyone here is over thinking the problem. Frankly, every since they changed WoF, I have used fireblast to replace it since it's just better. It has a knock back, with an augment it can panic and in the long run it costs less. They almost had me using all 4 of my abilities but since it feels like WoF conflicts so much more now with my builds I don't care about using it. Just make it a true toggle and call it a day. I like accelerant because it makes my hek fire build do a bananas amount of damage and I've already explained my  position on fire blast (then again, I could do without the LoS requirement but I won't call them out on it if they don't remove it).

[RealPandemonium]

I got an idea for accelerant, maybe it could turn armour target to flesh during the duration of the debuff. What do you think?

They're already flesh; they just have armor also.  Armor scaling needs to be removed, as it doesn't make sense for one faction's HP to grow so much faster than the others'.  Bandaids are arbitrary and don't solve anything.

[geninrising]

I kind of like the direction this idea is going. But it seems like it would mess with allies' damage choices. But maybe striking off the armor would make up for this.

 

Its weird to me that people would rather replace Accelerant, a hard cc with a high up time that prevents the majority of dangerous enemies from attacking both you and your teammates, with an ability that only protects Ember when she is taking hits. I think a room-wide cc ability that prevents enemy retaliation and simultaneously happens to multiply all of Ember's damage is vastly more useful. I guess it's a difference between people who like a highly active frame where you have to cast multiple abilities frequently versus those who like long duration abilities that you can set-and forget while focusing on your gunplay.  That's the only reason I can think of why some folk dislike casting 2 as much as they can.

 

Maybe my perspective is skewed by my highly specialized endgame mod selection (Fleeting expertise, Quicking Thinking, etc.). And perhaps it's when Ember is using just the entry level basic mods. (Streamline, Continuity etc.) that her skillset is not satisfying her expectations. So somehow the devs have to balance her so she's satisfying and safe to play at the entry level while not becoming overpowered or having her potential nerfed when using specialized mod sets.

I agree Ryjeon. I feel that accelerant serves a great purpose however I feel that because damage falls off so fast on enemies due to scaling people feel that it is absolutely necessary that they spam accelerant for the damage buff. Consequently it makes Ember feel like she absolutely must have a spam setup rather than going their preferred build of duration when possible. The reason people are asking for a personal defensive ability is because of Ember's up close and personal nature and the fact that the only thing that scales into late game is a CC. It feels exceedingly weird that a glass cannon frame is forced to be a cc bot at later levels.

[(XBOX)LilHypezKiid]

I agree Ryjeon. I feel that accelerant serves a great purpose however I feel that because damage falls off so fast on enemies due to scaling people feel that it is absolutely necessary that they spam accelerant for the damage buff. Consequently it makes Ember feel like she absolutely must have a spam setup rather than going their preferred build of duration when possible. The reason people are asking for a personal defensive ability is because of Ember's up close and personal nature and the fact that the only thing that scales into late game is a CC. It feels exceedingly weird that a glass cannon frame is forced to be a cc bot at later levels.

Quite indeed, it's sort of like Ember is a bad Nova; she has no defences and damage drops off very quickly. 

[geninrising]

I still think everyone here is over thinking the problem. Frankly, every since they changed WoF, I have used fireblast to replace it since it's just better. It has a knock back, with an augment it can panic and in the long run it costs less. They almost had me using all 4 of my abilities but since it feels like WoF conflicts so much more now with my builds I don't care about using it. Just make it a true toggle and call it a day. I like accelerant because it makes my hek fire build do a bananas amount of damage and I've already explained my  position on fire blast (then again, I could do without the LoS requirement but I won't call them out on it if they don't remove it).

That's precisely the point. The fact that we are "ALMOST" using all of our abilities. They need to make it a rewarding experience across the board to use said abilities. They need to make sure we are not constantly bickering over the abilities themselves. Sure there is a certain percentage of players that will always be unhappy, however the majority of us are looking at things from a balance perspective and realize that there are inconsistencies with the design implementations and we simply want these inconsistencies resolved. 

 

Ember has 2 glaring inconsistencies at the moment. One is the mechanic of Fire Blast that causes enemies to completely avoid it the majority of the time. No other ability in game suffers from this occurrence. This is unacceptable.

 

The other is WoF's issue of being beholden to both an energy drain per second mechanic as well as a durational restriction. WoF is not equal to Mirage's ult in that it does not provide any added benefit to its cancellation and therefore it's toggle /end of duration serves no purpose other than being able to turn it off. Mesa's Peace Maker is an extremely fast ability that has a balanced energy drain mechanic and thus is not a problem. Banshee's energy drain is again well balanced and is not a problem. Nyx's absorb is quite frankly over powered IMO providing total damage immunity and a subsequently insanely powerful burst of damage with an energy drain that makes sense.

 

Ember has an energy drain that is prohibitive to consistent use as she MUST rely on Accelerant constantly for her damage to remain relevant longer and to ensure she locks enemies down because of her extremely fragile state. When we add to that fact that she is beholden to duration to increase her efficiency(because recasting WoF consistently is more cost vs value prohibitive) we see a greater gap in the energy use vs value formula.

[Ryjeon]

I don't think having expensive combos is a problem if Ember can make the decision to spend more energy to get a greater return. I think the problem is players feel like that have to expend all this energy to get similar results as frames that spend less energy. But if Ember's energy mechanics supported being able to spend more energy for a greater return then I think that would be effective and interesting. What if Accelerant could stack, but the stacks could not refresh eachother. So a low-duration build wouldn't be able to stack as many debuffs as efficiently as a higher duration build. Banshee and Volt already have similar mechanics allowing them to scale up their damage with multiple casts of Sonar and Electric Shield. Perhaps there could be a way to consume these stacks with another ability for an explosive burst of damage and/or crowd control and/or armor debuffing.

 

I think casting many expensive abilities with Ember could be incentivized. But the combat power you get out of that expenditure should scale upwards accordingly.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Ryjeon

[MotherofHermes]

Hey guys. What about this: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/386712-ember-rework-a-new-mechanic-and-scalable-power/

[Soul.Fire]

They just need to *fix* the energy cost issue.  Make it 25 energy to activate like peacemaker and adjust the drain such that 10 second WoF costs 75 energy or something.  When you don't consider efficiency they current WoF is better than it's ever been (perhaps barring the pre-damage 1.0 Ember, which was either really cheesy or people have rose-colored glasses for it.)

No, no and no, it needs to work the same way as Absorb, it needs to cost the same as Absorb, run the same as Absorb. WoF is not better than it was, it is worse, it costs more to cast to begin with than any other toggle, it's idiotically dependant on Accelerant which is a pain in the ! stationary skill and adds another unnecessary energy charge, and the duration cap means you're casting both of them again, adding another unfair charge to keep the damned thing going long enough to do anything with it. You can't consider the skill without considering the efficiency, it doesn't work that way. Unfortunately, you also can't consider it without the unnecessary Accelerant cost either, that skill is a plague x.x

Edited February 1, 2015 by Soul.Fire

[Flackenstien]

The Duration cap REALLY needs to be removed from World on Fire.

Allowing Ember to be able to keep World on Fire up at the cost of constant Energy drain would really help her keep her Damage going, and allow her to not be forced to use Duration Mods.

 

Fire Blast really should damage the enemies within the circle, and have an innate Heat proc chance.  

This will allow Fire Blast's Augment Mod to be reworked into something more unique and useful.

Also, Fire Blast's Damage should be raised enough to warrant the base cost of 75 Energy.

 

If I may propose an idea for the reworked Fire Blast Augment, it would be to allow Ember to cast Fire Blast from afar, similarly to Limbo and his Cataclysm. The difference being, is that Ember would have to cast it on a flat surface.

 

One pressing issue that people seem to be forgetting, is that Fireball needs some work.  

It's too tough to reliably hit enemies with, and the Damage falls off very quickly.

It'd be nice if the AOE damage was boosted a bit, and I think it would be cool if any enemy hit by the AOE would cause additional AOEs (that do NOT cause further AOEs). 

This way, the Ability would truly be an explosive Fireball.

 

The whole Accelerant/Overheat thing is a whole debate in itself.

[ARavenousPanda]

dont scrap accelerant, make it so that it isnt NEEDED but still accessible

[--Q--Guther]

Guys really, take a step back and consider the relevance and impact of THIS thread.

Its one thread amongst hundreds in other wf subforums. If i were a DE community staff, why would i give a hoot about this constructive but non profit generating thread?

There is no imminent threat of an organised boycott unlike the viver hoohah. Why would i urgently relook if the recent ember changes were sufficient or not, or in this case, sound?

If i decide to heed community consensus and make apt changes to ember swiftly, is that not an indirect public admittance of failure, where i have now poised myself incompetent to make any meaningful(if not destructive) changes to ember, after having one year's worth of ponderance.

I dont want to be a cold blanket, but the warmth and passionate dialogue in this thread would amount to nothing, simply because its bad PR image for firemen to repeatedly run out with the hose to put out the flames, only to find that the hose hasnt been connected to a hydrant again and again.

[Soul.Fire]

dont scrap accelerant, make it so that it isnt NEEDED but still accessible

I'm not so sure I agree there, and this is just my thoughts on the matter. As it stands now everything is far too dependant on it, but if they make it so everything else isn't dependant on it to be useful, then it goes back to being a skill that has no real reason for being there, and it's unfortunate when that happens with skills. What I would like to see them do is scrap Accelerant altogether and bring back Overheat as suggested by another poster, make it a tiny bit more powerful, possibly with the twist that incoming fire damage would add to either it's duration or it's defense rating, just not both because that would make it feel cheap. Personally I would suggest making it boost defense rating rather than duration because that would make the skill scale better on high level missions. The reason I say this is because while yes, that skill was a bit sad, the "armor buff" Ember got this last time is sadder still and it does nothing for her. She has to get too close to too many enemies who all want her dead for her current armor rating, so a defensive skill would be nice.

 

Fireball is just sad, it is fully dependant on Accelerant in order to do reliable damage, but for all intents and purposes it's a ranged skill. Unfortunately, that means that it flies away from Ember, and by default that also means it flies away from the radius of Accelerant. It doesn't always manage to hit what you aim for, it also doesn't always set things on fire, and it has a very slim to no chance of setting more than one enemy on fire when you do hit.

 

Fire Blast is something I won't use, again because it's so dependant on Accelerant, but there's also the problem that it first knocks things away from the fire ring it creates and secondly it doesn't always set things on fire or even always do heat damage. Enemies also will actively avoid the fire ring at all costs for some reason, even though they will run blindly into the radius of every other skill imaginable, and even into burning patches on the floor, which is laughable considering that Lotus is always warning you on those missions to "Stay away from the fire."

 

WoF is all kinds of broken after they got through tweaking it the last time, it is again dependant on Accelerant if you want to do any real damage with it, it doesn't always set things on fire, and in order to get the most damage you have to make sure you stand still, which is innately bad for WoF as that particular skill requires you to run into the middle of a group of enemies, now more so than ever before what with the 15 meter range limit they just put on it. This is a bad thing, because the skill is a little weird in that it will either hit 3 or 4 enemies and refuse to hit others or it will hit all enemies but only two or three times and once that limit is reached it can't hit the same enemies again. And in the case of heavy gunners and bombards, you need a really high amount of hits to even tickle them, let alone really damage them. The Devs also for some unfathomable reason decided that it needs both a channeling charge and a duration cap in addition to activation, meaning that it runs out in exactly 10 seconds or less, so there's now a pretty hefty penalty for adding duration mods to your build. If you go the other route and go for damage, there's still a huge energy cost because you're completely sacrificing efficiency at that point. You're also reactivating it and casting Accelerant more frequently, which doesn't help Ember, or anyone else in your squad really. Now, I'm all for that skill being a toggle, you wouldn't think it to watch another Ember cast it, but it's super noisy to channel, and when I could actually get 45 seconds out of it without killing my entire 600 energy pool in just 2 and a half casts it was sometimes irritating to have it keep going when there were no more enemies. They should make it cost half as much to cast, and make the channeling scale to the mods you have installed like all the other warframe toggle abilities, the best case of that I've personally used to date being Nyx's Absorb. It's a minimal cost to cast, it's a minimal cost to channel, and it has a wonderfully damaging and explosive return at the cancellation regardless of whether you cancel it yourself or you just simply let it run until you're out of energy.

 

Now, these are all just my personal opinions, but I've had no end of issues with Ember being almost unplayable since the last change made to her, and Accelerant seems to be the main culprit, although the other skills are really pitiful too, so pitiful in fact as to make Accelerant necessary just to get by right now.

Edited February 1, 2015 by Soul.Fire

[Ryjeon]

-snip-

 

This is why I'd like to advocate for augments that can completely replace or change powers. Because it's completely clear that you hate using Accelerant. Whereas I never cared for Ember until I started seeing what Accelerant can do and since then she's been my favorite frame. Strictly because of Accelerant. I've always used Accelerant like a slightly lower duration radial blind but with the added effect of boosting fire damage on all my weapons. Accelerant is the most interesting ability for me. It is an ability that allows me to succeed in every scenario regardless of team composition. I use it as a room-wide crowd control and damage boost all in one.  Accelerant isn't a stationary ability for me because I am always moving and jumping into the middle of enemies to cast it. Were I to lose it I would in effect have to start the game over looking for something I love to play with. But you clearly hate it and find no appeal in playing Ember while she has it. Just as I would find no appeal in playing Ember if she were to lose it.

 

This is why I would like to see Augments that make more drastic changes to frames. And Ember seems like a great place to experiment with that. Let's go ahead and get an augment that swaps Accelerant for Overheat. Or let's make it into a duration based toggle. Something so that the people who are disatisfied with the playstyle the mechanic supports can have something else to play with. And those who love the playstyle can keep having fun and succeeding with it.

Edited February 1, 2015 by Ryjeon

[geninrising]

This is why I would like to see Augments that make more drastic changes to frames. And Ember seems like a great place to experiment with that. Let's go ahead and get an augment that swaps Accelerant for Overheat. Or let's make it into a duration based toggle. Something so that the people who are disatisfied with the playstyle the mechanic supports can have something else to play with. And those who love the playstyle can keep having fun and succeeding with it.

Agreed. In fact this is what many players wanted from the beginning however the problem with this was that many players felt it would be unfair to be forced to use an augment to change an ability they felt did not fit their style. Thus the player that likes Accelerant in it's current iteration has an advantage over the player that must use an augment to facilitate their playstyle.

[(PSN)IkariWarrior83]

This is why I'd like to advocate for augments that can completely replace or change powers. Because it's completely clear that you hate using Accelerant. <snip>

I'm in favor of an Accelerant augment that makes it so allies in range of Accelerant (including the caster) are healed by fire attacks.  Imagine being Ember against the Grineer and then a Napalm or Scorch comes out of nowhere and the fire proc is healing you.  Sounds pretty sweet to me.

[gvidzix]

Well they tried.

[ST4R-DUST]

I think they should merge accelerant with the reduced damage from overheat. From my experience so far with an efficient build i can spam accelerant and keep a whole group of heavies perma stunned in T4S and use that stun time to cast WoF and THEN do a fire blast (and spam it like there's no tomorrow) so i can open up some space and also perma CC enemies with the knockdown and fire procs.

 

She's a very effective CC frame.

Edited February 3, 2015 by CheesyDaedra

[Neogeo]

Ember is just bad. She can't take damage and can't deal damage. Her cc is medicore at best. I don't know why anyone would bother playing her when other frame did everything better.

[--Q--Guther]

Ember is just bad. She can't take damage and can't deal damage. Her cc is medicore at best. I don't know why anyone would bother playing her when other frame did everything better.

DE doesnt agree with you. The recent changes to rebalance a weak frame, rather than outright buff her, is indicative that they dont find her as lacking as most of us ember players do.

[Rankii]

Okay, so I've been trying to play ember in different ways and really it's all boiled down to the fact that she just doesn't fit the role she's been wedged into. Her skills all are radial AoE and benifit from her getting up close and personal with her enemies. But her armor is lacking (better but still lacking) and her health/shields don't let her take a hit. That's saying nothing of how gimped World on Fire's become. So I was looking at that V polarity, cursing my luck that it wasn't a --- for that delicious energy siphon or corrosive projection, and I realized: what if ember was built to hit like a blacksmith's hammer. So hold on, folks: this is my half-baked idea for an ember rework. I'm bad with exact numbers and values, so I'm just going to rate things on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being top-tier and 1 being next-to-nothing. Also for the sake of things I'm going to use Exalibur as a standard with his stats all at a solid 5

 

(As if you haven't read through enough of these already.)

 

HP 5

Shields 3

Armor 8

Speed 5

Energy 6

Super secret passive: Ember takes less damage from fire-related sources.

 

1: Fireball

Works the same as before, with ranged AoE and some damage over time by lighting enemies on fire. Blast is increased by range mods, power by power mods. After burn isn't affected by anything and does light for a while.

 

2: Temper

Ember superheats herself, fortifying her outside and giving fire damage a boost in power. This replace accellerant and, like CheesyDaedra said, gives ember some damage resistance. Fully leveled it could reduce up to two thirds of incoming damage, but that amount isn't affected by power mods. How much extra fire damage she deals, however, can be boosted with power mods. I imagine it'd work like saryn's contagion, adding fire to weapon damage and combining appropriately with other elements present. Affected by duraton and power mods.

(Also gives a neat flame aura, but that's just because I think an ember that isn't on fire is like an ugly kitten: hard to imagine and not fun to look at.)

 

3: Fire blast

Similar to how it is, but with a radius that is slightly affected by range mods. The area inside the ring is also a hazard, dealing damage to enemies standing in it.

 

4: World on Fire/Heliosphere

Ember wraps herself in a globe of intense heat, like a fire-flavored version of the nulifier orbs (mercy on those with Bloom enabled, depending). Enemies entering take high (actually high, not high for ember) amounts of fire damage, and ember's speed is increased. Obviously affected by power mods and the range is affected by range mods.

 

Again, it's half baked, and could use some serious tweaking. I like ember, I really, do. But as she is now she's a joke and I feel bad for anyone that built and potatoe'd ember in hopes that the "buff" would make her playable in anything that wasn't an infested mission.

[Aimop95]

Just a little tweak for Fireblast, if it has to have Los, then it should be like Excal's blind, where if the enemy sees a wall of flame coming to them, they get pushed back (or instantly proc'd with fire damage), not if Ember can't see them.

 

WoF should be tweaked to become duration only or an expensive toggle. I'd like it if it also did blast damage but I can live without that.

 

Adversely, make WoF a skill like Cataclysm, Ember can cast it onto an area that erupts into flame, damaging enemies inside and proc'ing the fire status. 

Edited February 3, 2015 by Aimop95

[Soul.Fire]

This is why I'd like to advocate for augments that can completely replace or change powers. Because it's completely clear that you hate using Accelerant. Whereas I never cared for Ember until I started seeing what Accelerant can do and since then she's been my favorite frame. Strictly because of Accelerant. I've always used Accelerant like a slightly lower duration radial blind but with the added effect of boosting fire damage on all my weapons. Accelerant is the most interesting ability for me. It is an ability that allows me to succeed in every scenario regardless of team composition. I use it as a room-wide crowd control and damage boost all in one.  Accelerant isn't a stationary ability for me because I am always moving and jumping into the middle of enemies to cast it. Were I to lose it I would in effect have to start the game over looking for something I love to play with. But you clearly hate it and find no appeal in playing Ember while she has it. Just as I would find no appeal in playing Ember if she were to lose it.

 

This is why I would like to see Augments that make more drastic changes to frames. And Ember seems like a great place to experiment with that. Let's go ahead and get an augment that swaps Accelerant for Overheat. Or let's make it into a duration based toggle. Something so that the people who are disatisfied with the playstyle the mechanic supports can have something else to play with. And those who love the playstyle can keep having fun and succeeding with it.

Now that I could go for. Accelerant wouldnt bother me so much, but its stationary where two of the other skills are mobile, so that's the biggest reason it drives me insane. But yes, this idea i could definitely get behind because then you could still play the nuke the way you want to and I could still play the way i used to. Neither of use would be penalized for our builds. As it is now I've had to scrap mine or be penalized into oblivion every time i use WoF, so that's where my personal issues and hating Accelerant are actually coming from.

[Soul.Fire]

Okay, so I've been trying to play ember in different ways and really it's all boiled down to the fact that she just doesn't fit the role she's been wedged into. Her skills all are radial AoE and benifit from her getting up close and personal with her enemies. But her armor is lacking (better but still lacking) and her health/shields don't let her take a hit. That's saying nothing of how gimped World on Fire's become. So I was looking at that V polarity, cursing my luck that it wasn't a --- for that delicious energy siphon or corrosive projection, and I realized: what if ember was built to hit like a blacksmith's hammer. So hold on, folks: this is my half-baked idea for an ember rework. I'm bad with exact numbers and values, so I'm just going to rate things on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being top-tier and 1 being next-to-nothing. Also for the sake of things I'm going to use Exalibur as a standard with his stats all at a solid 5

 

(As if you haven't read through enough of these already.)

 

HP 5

Shields 3

Armor 8

Speed 5

Energy 6

Super secret passive: Ember takes less damage from fire-related sources.

 

1: Fireball

Works the same as before, with ranged AoE and some damage over time by lighting enemies on fire. Blast is increased by range mods, power by power mods. After burn isn't affected by anything and does light for a while.

 

2: Temper

Ember superheats herself, fortifying her outside and giving fire damage a boost in power. This replace accellerant and, like CheesyDaedra said, gives ember some damage resistance. Fully leveled it could reduce up to two thirds of incoming damage, but that amount isn't affected by power mods. How much extra fire damage she deals, however, can be boosted with power mods. I imagine it'd work like saryn's contagion, adding fire to weapon damage and combining appropriately with other elements present. Affected by duraton and power mods.

(Also gives a neat flame aura, but that's just because I think an ember that isn't on fire is like an ugly kitten: hard to imagine and not fun to look at.)

 

3: Fire blast

Similar to how it is, but with a radius that is slightly affected by range mods. The area inside the ring is also a hazard, dealing damage to enemies standing in it.

 

4: World on Fire/Heliosphere

Ember wraps herself in a globe of intense heat, like a fire-flavored version of the nulifier orbs (mercy on those with Bloom enabled, depending). Enemies entering take high (actually high, not high for ember) amounts of fire damage, and ember's speed is increased. Obviously affected by power mods and the range is affected by range mods.

 

Again, it's half baked, and could use some serious tweaking. I like ember, I really, do. But as she is now she's a joke and I feel bad for anyone that built and potatoe'd ember in hopes that the "buff" would make her playable in anything that wasn't an infested mission.

Epic idea, i love it. World on Fire would actually be World on Fire :3

[Soul.Fire]

DE doesnt agree with you. The recent changes to rebalance a weak frame, rather than outright buff her, is indicative that they dont find her as lacking as most of us ember players do.

Clearly none of them main an Ember, the same way that none of them main a Frost. Either that or somehow their Embers are better than ours XD