Why I Think Blade Storm Isnt Op

[JayGideon1]

Now, as of late i have seen a lot of hate on blade storm, mostly centered around people not liking the mechanics or finding it boring, we will leave this alone for now as fun is a subjective term and i personally believe that asking for a change to an ability based on what you find fun or not fun isnt that great of a reason to ask for buff, nerf or whatever. 

 

however i have seen a lot of people claiming that blade storm is OP, and i want to say that in my opinion it is not over powered. 

 

Blade storm is, as everyone knows, capable of insane amounts of damage that can kill eximus at level 100+. no other ability even comes close to this raw damage, this is where a lot of people start calling BS over powered and i have to disagree. 

 

Any player will tell you that a frames power lies more in their utility than their damage output, because utility scales incredibly well. thats why Nyx and loki are such great frame, their abilities do no damage (other than Nyx's bolts) and can always be effective against high level enemies. this is the case for every other frame in the game. they have to find their utility in their skills to survive the high level. Excal will move to radial blind (used to be more effective), Rhino will rely on roar to buff his weapons and the stasis of stomp, mesa will stop using peacemaker and use shatter shield and shooting gallery, oberon will rely more on the radiation procs of reckoning instead of the actual damage. the only frames that are struggling to find a place in end game content are Ember and frost (this is debatable even still) and a lot the requested buffs to these frames are utility based instead of asking for just purely damage boosting. so damage is not needed or desired to succeed in high levels, utility is. this is why i do not think BS is over powered. Ash has very little utility (the stun on smoke bomb is good but not great and of course his invisibility is nowhere near the level of loki ) but he can still survive in high levels due to the fact that he can reliably kill things. he relies on something other than utility, which every other frame relies on. so why shouldnt there be at least on ability than straight up just kills instead of CC'ing or something along those lines?  the end result is still the same, it just uses a different method. there should be at least one ability than can scale into end game using damage instead of utility. this keeps the game balanced as now Ash can survive along with other frames, albeit in a different way 

[NinjaSnipe11]

tl;dr: Because you ash main and don't wanna get nerfed.

It's okay I am too.

[Andruunicul]

It's a cool skill , however it's kinda press 4 to win cause in the time You are killin the enemies You are invincibile! XD

[JayGideon1]

tl;dr: Because you ash main and don't wanna get nerfed.

It's okay I am too.

i do main ash, but i dont like spamming ults all the time, i find that boring, however, i dont think Nerfs help the game in general, there are underlying issues that wont be fixed simply by nerfing an ability or two. i have yet to see a nerf that i agree with, even to frames i find annoying 

[Cynaris]

Why I Think This Thread Is Complete BS

 

everything

 

--

 

Really, maybe "Ash isn't OP" if you consider utility, probably he really is OP though.

I don't care much about him n the end.

His only real disadvantage is the possibility to fall out of the map, and that says a lot.

Edited March 2, 2015 by Cynaris

[rockscl]

you didn't even understood why ash`s ultimate is under debate, and since all you saw was "hate", its clear that you are being purely emotional, the efforts of players that take time to see in depth and to share his thoughts can't be silenced anymore because of such superficial analysis

 

you have aiming mechanics, movement mechanics, sense of orientation, speed, reactions, human interaction, communication, whatever factor you want to add to a gameplay soup, but you´d rather press 4 and allow the engine to play a tower defense in your behalf

Edited March 2, 2015 by rockscl

[SquirmyBurrito]

I don't see why Blade Storm is considered overpowered. It kills high level enemies where other ults fail because unlike most other ults, Blade Storm's damage is finisher damage. It ignores armor. It isn't OP, other ults are just terrible against armor.

[JayGideon1]

you clearly didnt even understand why ash`s ultimate wants to be changed, and since all you saw was "hate", its evident that you are being purely emotional, the efforts of players that take time to see in depth and to share his thoughts cant be silenced anymore because of weak analysis like yours

im not moving purely off of emotion, im using "hate" as more of a slang term for scrutiny, and secondly can i have some feed back as to why my analysis is "weak"? simply commenting on the thread in the manner you did helps no one 

[VentiGlondi]

I don't see why Blade Storm is considered overpowered. It kills high level enemies where other ults fail because unlike most other ults, Blade Storm's damage is finisher damage. It ignores armor. It isn't OP, other ults are just terrible against armor.

It's not about just damage.

It's about damage, no initial casting time, immortality during execution, the ability to cast it from a distance, damage being increased further by damage multiplier and the fact it isn't affected by duration mods, which makes it possible to get max efficiency with no downsides.

 

Blade Storm pretty much got rid of all the downsides of a standard AoE nuke, while having the highest damage potential, in exchange for limited amount of targets.

[CTanGod]

Bladestorm is not op because it only does 1 thing: does dmg. Nothing more and nothing less. Just because it ignores armor it doesn't make it op because Ash has noly 1 purpose: Do dmg.

 

If we are to consider a frame ability op that is M Prime, massive slow for low cost and massive duration + dmg amp.

[Shuuro]

Blade Storm has to be, one of, if not, the most difficult skill to balance around in the game right now.

 

One side of the coin, you can, with no questions asked, simply kill everything in the star chart, including a fair amount of time into survival/defense/interception/excavation. With the press of a single button.

 

I mean, at least with, (and I know I'm going to get hate for this, but just look at the point being made), Nova, her abilities need you to actively drain damage into enemies, or a anti-matter ball of doom to do the damage. All which while, you can still die.

 

In this case, Blade Storm, is unmatched. All you need is the skill, no weapons, things die. 

 

That, is the Over Powered side of blade storm.

 

 

Now, let's take a look into the reverse side of the coin.

 

As you expect, Ash has little to no utility. (For those of you that think smoke screens 1 second stun is a viable source of CC, that's like saying spamming slam attacks with the orthos prime will never, ever, EVER get you killed).

 

Blade Storm, as it is currently, is a massive damage ultimate. It can deal extreme amounts of damage. The one thing it doesn't have, is that it can not scale well.

 

Yes. It can kill level 1xx enemies, but in exchange for that damage, what you sacrifice is time.

 

The more and more health enemies get, the longer, and longer you have stay in blade storm in order to kill something. Until it gets to the point where you need to cast yet another blade storm, again, with that nicely stacked up damage multiplier, to kill something off.

 

Then you do it over, and over, and over.

 

You are invincible, but you take an excruciating amount of time to kill something.

 

This, is where Blade Storm fails, in matches that challenge how long you can endure.

 

 

Looking at both sides of the coin, Blade Storm is nearly an instant win button, anywhere that does not involve enemies that can scale past.. oh.. I'd say.. around 120.

 

 

I main Ash. He is my main ever since day one. I can admit that Blade Storm is in an awkward place in terms of balance. You change this one ability just slightly, and it tips into the over powered or weak as crap scales.

 

Edit: Typos/Mistakes.

Edited March 2, 2015 by Shuuro

[Anatolius]

I don't see why Blade Storm is considered overpowered. It kills high level enemies where other ults fail because unlike most other ults, Blade Storm's damage is finisher damage. It ignores armor. It isn't OP, other ults are just terrible against armor.

Tentacle swam does finisher damage over time too

but that kinda falls off as well (or takes a long time to actually kill enemies)

[rockscl]

im not moving purely off of emotion, im using "hate" as more of a slang term for scrutiny, and secondly can i have some feed back as to why my analysis is "weak"? simply commenting on the thread in the manner you did helps no one 

 

its weak, because you are just talking about likes and opness, while the discussion is about gameplay, about overall game objectives, and how they move players to look for cheaper tactics that would allow them to grind faster, finding themselves in loops that for the sake of time (real life time) efficiency cant allow a lot of amusing things to do in this game, by cheaper tactics i mean spamming radial cc and nuke abilities that turn the game in a tower defense with no room for action and rts skills, leaving in the "action shooter rpg" only the "rpg", being bladestorm one of those tactics, why a skill can become the tactic, that cant be allowed to happen

 

and yes, ash has a role as a dps warframe, but that can be preserved with different mechanics

Edited March 2, 2015 by rockscl

[direcyphre]

Better idea: Post this analysis of yours in threads proclaiming Blade Storm is OP.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Tentacle swarm falls off so hard because it doesn't do nearly as much damage

[Koto]

Blade Storm, as it is currently, is a massive damage ultimate. It can deal extreme amounts of damage. The one thing it doesn't have, is that it can not scale well.

 

Yes. It can kill level 1xx enemies, but in exchange for that damage, what you sacrifice is time.

 

The more and more health enemies get, the longer, and longer you have stay in blade storm in order to kill something. Until it gets to the point where you need to cast yet another blade storm, again, with that nicely stacked up damage multiplier, to kill something off.

 

Then you do it over, and over, and over.

 

You are invincible, but you take an excruciating amount of time to kill something.

 

This, is where Blade Storm fails, in matches that challenge how long you can endure.

^all of this. 

[JayGideon1]

its weak, because you are just talking about likes and opness, while the discussion is about gameplay, about overall game objectives, and how they move players to look for cheaper tactics that would allow them to grind faster, finding themselves in loops that for the sake of time (real life time) efficiency cant allow a lot of amusing things to do in this game, by cheaper tactics i mean spamming radial cc and nuke abilities that turn the game in a tower defense with no room for action and rts skills, leaving in the "action shooter rpg" only the "rpg", being bladestorm one of those tactics, why a skill can become the tactic, that cant be allowed to happen

im talking about just Blade storm and why i dont view it was OP, the things you are discussing are over arching problems that do not rely in the simple rework of a few abilities blade storm or not people will always look for the fastest way to accomplish goals in a game and something like that will always be in the game (for example in skyrim theres a method to boost smithing to 100 in an hour, this was left in the game however) , and secondly i wanted to ignore the things such as "likes" (which alot of threads are only addressing the fact blade storm is boring, which is something youre criticizing me for) and discuss the fact that people think its OP which has very little to do with merely likes or dislikes

[Cynaris]

Bladestorm is not op because it only does 1 thing: does dmg. Nothing more and nothing less. Just because it ignores armor it doesn't make it op because Ash has noly 1 purpose: Do dmg.

 

If we are to consider a frame ability op that is M Prime, massive slow for low cost and massive duration + dmg amp.

People already want Peacemaker nerfed, and it only does what Bladestorm does, except it makes you vulnerable instead of invulnerable. Both has the only purpose of dealing damage.

 

Your point?

Edited March 2, 2015 by Cynaris

[TheErebus.]

Can we just stop with the bladestorm threads? Whether it's OP or not, they always lead to the same arguments with the same people being involved. 

It's just one giant circle that no one can get out of because they say the same things. 

[DCypherThis13]

Compared to even lackluster ults, Blade Storm really isn't all that impressive. You can only attack 18 times per use. Yes, the damage is very high and you are invulnerable during the animation, but Sound Quake can damage more than 18 enemies per use and stunlock them. If Crush would ragdoll at the end of the animation, Blade Storm would effectively be useless if you have a Mag in your squad.

 

To put things bluntly, a Banshee with a range build can lock down an entire defense tileset by pressing "4" once. Meanwhile, Ash has to cast and recast and recast. You're going to run out of mojo eventually, even with an extremely efficient build that sacrifices a lot of duration and range which hurt his other skills in a very big way.

 

Ash is a very capable Warframe, but you have to give up some power towards Blade Storm to make all of his skills work well. Ash is very well balanced, as he stands, and those who can take advantage of his true power know this.

[VentiGlondi]

Compared to even lackluster ults, Blade Storm really isn't all that impressive. You can only attack 18 times per use. Yes, the damage is very high and you are invulnerable during the animation, but Sound Quake can damage more than 18 enemies per use and stunlock them. If Crush would ragdoll at the end of the animation, Blade Storm would effectively be useless if you have a Mag in your squad.

 

To put things bluntly, a Banshee with a range build can lock down an entire defense tileset by pressing "4" once. Meanwhile, Ash has to cast and recast and recast. You're going to run out of mojo eventually, even with an extremely efficient build that sacrifices a lot of duration and range which hurt his other skills in a very big way.

 

Ash is a very capable Warframe, but you have to give up some power towards Blade Storm to make all of his skills work well. Ash is very well balanced, as he stands, and those who can take advantage of his true power know this.

Are you really telling me targeting an enemy once in a while is that difficult?

And what's up with that sacrificing range and duration. When you're spamming blade storm, you don't need to be invisible. You're invulnerable.

Range doesn't change whatsoever, I don't know where you got that from.

 

Besides, I wonder who's gonna run out of energy faster - Ash, who can deal 19596 finisher damage to 18 enemies for 65 energy, or Banshee who will deal 80 blast damage per 3 energy.

[SquirmyBurrito]

It's not about just damage.

It's about damage, no initial casting time, immortality during execution, the ability to cast it from a distance, damage being increased further by damage multiplier and the fact it isn't affected by duration mods, which makes it possible to get max efficiency with no downsides.

 

Blade Storm pretty much got rid of all the downsides of a standard AoE nuke, while having the highest damage potential, in exchange for limited amount of targets.

 

If it isn't about the damage, then there is no reason to call it overpowered.

 

You're only invulnerable for the duration of the ability (which seems pretty important since you're locked into it once you cast it). Casting distance is pretty unimportant. Blade Storm is far from the only ability that can be increased by damage multipliers. Blade Storm is also far from the only ult that is unaffected by duration mods.

 

No, it really didn't. It has some added upsides in exchange for several downsides. It has a limit to its total number of targets (a HUGE downside compared to most ults having no target limit), its damage isn't instant (you have to go through the animations), its initial target requires LoS, and it has a bad habit of bugging out and sticking you under the map (a bug that has repeatedly resurfaced after being patched).

 

Tentacle swam does finisher damage over time too

but that kinda falls off as well (or takes a long time to actually kill enemies)

 

Yes it does, but unlike Blade Storm it has added long lasting CC (the brief period of time when enemies are stuck in finisher animations is CC but isn't really worth mentioning).

 

Tentacle swarm falls off so hard because it doesn't do nearly as much damage

 

Yeah but it has hard CC to compensate.

 

Are you really telling me targeting an enemy once in a while is that difficult?

And what's up with that sacrificing range and duration. When you're spamming blade storm, you don't need to be invisible. You're invulnerable.

Range doesn't change whatsoever, I don't know where you got that from.

 

Besides, I wonder who's gonna run out of energy faster - Ash, who can deal 19596 finisher damage to 18 enemies for 65 energy, or Banshee who will deal 80 blast damage per 3 energy.

 

 

You can't stay in blade storm forever, and since your targets are limited you aren't guaranteed to kill everything with in shooting range of you before you come out of blade storm so getting shot in between casts is a very real possibility.

Most of Ash's abilities are affected by range, including blade storm.

 

With a maxed primed flow, Ash is only hitting 108 enemies. That's about 8 casts.

Edited March 2, 2015 by SquirmyBurrito

[Hypernaut1]

The Devs aren't going to touch BS.

1. It doesn't get the most kills in game compared to other abilities (see Graph released a few weeks ago)

2. It's not an often requested skill for farming parties. People don't mind ash, but he is rarely required for any type of farming in this game. So he is not abused.

They may in fact think BS is very well balanced. It's an effective skill that is not abused by the community.

Killing enemies is Ash thing. The problem is, killings is not ALWAYS the most important thing in game. many parties prefer CC or other utility compared to Ash's straight damage.

[VentiGlondi]

You can't stay in blade storm forever, and since your targets are limited you aren't guaranteed to kill everything with in shooting range of you before you come out of blade storm so getting shot in between casts is a very real possibility.

Most of Ash's abilities are affected by range, including blade storm.

 

With a maxed primed flow, Ash is only hitting 108 enemies. That's about 8 casts.

You're forgetting that Ash can regenerate energy while in Blade Storm and also pick up energy orbs via carrier.

Cause y'know, Ash is going to kill things. Banshee isn't

 

Also about the range again - post stated he has to sacrifice range, while in fact range isn't touched whatsoever.

Edited March 2, 2015 by VentiGlondi

[DCypherThis13]

Are you really telling me targeting an enemy once in a while is that difficult?

I run Vectis, Paris, Latron or Grinlok most of the time for a primary weapon. Does that answer your question?

 

And what's up with that sacrificing range and duration. When you're spamming blade storm, you don't need to be invisible. You're invulnerable.

Range doesn't change whatsoever, I don't know where you got that from.

I prefer to use all of the abilities of any Warframe, so maximizing Blade Storm will hurt skills like Smoke Screen and Teleport. Not good in my book...

 

Besides, I wonder who's gonna run out of energy faster - Ash, who can deal 19596 finisher damage to 18 enemies for 65 energy, or Banshee who will deal 80 blast damage per 3 energy.

Short of a T4 Survival, you don't need to do that much damage, so what's the point? Before you even get to that level, you will need to rely on CC to stop the baddies from killing you with one shot anyway and Sound Quake fits the bill better than Blade Storm.