What Frames Have Bad Or Useless Abilities That Need Reconsideration?

[gam3addict]

The only one I have experience with and also disagree with is Smite. It's a long range knockdown, confuse, and stagger on nearby mobs that has saved me from surprise heavies at close range, heavies at mid range while reloading, and helps me manage clusters of enemies with the radiation effect. I'm honestly surprised it's as powerful as it is, but I love Smite to death.

[AutoPhox]

I really like venom from Saryn. I maximize its potential by using the kohm with corrosive and blast. The pellet count almost guarantees the spores to spread too. So against a cluster of high level grineer, i can proc them all with viral, blast and/or corrosive. This dispatches groups in short order.

Contagion, on the other hand...i find it useless in my playstyle. I wish it was a little more impressive for a #3.

Edit: and yes, plz switch the names of contagion and venom lol.

Edited April 22, 2015 by AutoPhox

[RexRgisIocus]

With Excalibur's upcoming changes, let's consider other frames that have almost useless (in pve, where the game actually matters) abilities like slash dash that need to be changed significantly or basically entirely useless or inappropriate abilities like super jump (secretly, I liked super jump, but let's be honest about it, it's not so hot) that could be replaced entirely.

 

Ember's Fireball. Ember is already arguably the worst frame in the entire game since Hydroid got Pilfering Swarm. Please get rid of this.

 

Hydroid's Tidal Surge. At least make it stun enemies for a while longer or something.

 

Mag's Bullet Attractor. Sure, this ability is theoretically useful and was fun waaaay back in the day to kill bosses super quickly with if you had a friend using Excalibur, but c'mon. It's bad and even more situational than Excal's super jump.

 

Mesa's Ballistic Battery. Right now, Mesa is mostly only good for low level farming. Yeah, shatter shield is a good defensive buff, but there are way better tanky frames and they often have more utlity, too. Ballistic battery is basically only useful for what, Torid? I guess? I mean you can use it, sure, but it's a waste of an ability. While we're at it, please think about rebalancing shooting gallery to maybe buff all teammates at once. Mesa is one of the coolest looking frames but everything she does, another frame does better.

 

Mirage's Sleight of Hand. Don't even PRETEND you don't know how situational and almost entirely useless this is. The augment is a waste of a slot to give that ability even conceivable usefulness that should have already been innate to it. To be fair, at least Mirage's other 3 abilities are all respectively amazing.

 

Nyx's Psychic Bolts. This ability is almost incomprehensibly bad and the augment really doesn't do enough to mitigate that. It's also one of Nyx's only two abilities boosted by power strength (and absorb is only mildly affected by it), something most builds neglect because her good abilities are enhanced by overextended (which lowers power strength even further).

 

Oberon's Smite. Wow, I can cast his ult's effects only weaker on a single target. I guess being able to use it mid-reload is neat???

 

Rhino's Charge. Please do the thing you're doing to Excal's Slash Dash with this, it's useless as-is unless you're modded for duration (probably for roar) and then it's only really a movement accelerator. Also consider making Roar a little more viable? That duration is so low that most Rhino players just opt to ignore it and focus on modding iron skin and stomp which makes them useless. Rhino can be an okay frame in high level stuff but almost everyone plays him the same awful way and he always becomes a huge anchor for the team. Roar is already inferior enough to other frame's buffs like Nova's molecular prime or Banshee's sonar.

 

Saryn's Contagion and Venom. Contagion is hilariously useless and Venom has been useless for over a year. Both of these abilities are almost never used by anyone actually playing a decent Saryn and need to be reconsidered entirely.

 

Trinity's Well of Life. Seriously, her ult already heals enough, this ability is almost useless unless you've got a REALLY REALLY dangerous eximus unit and need to lock him down but already have some other enemy Energy Vampired.

 

Valkyr's Rip Line. I love this ability, but I can't use it on my Valkyr builds because I don't have room for efficiency mods and despite how fun traveling with it can be, it just consumes too much energy. The augment mod for this one seriously should have just been an innate quality of this ability and is absolutely not worth an entire slot that would better be spent on nearly anything else. Valkyr is already a relatively low-tiered frame (at least since nullifiers happened), why not give her a cheaper or even free movement option?

 

Vauban's Tesla. Yeah, sure the augment mod makes these thing kill super low level enemies, I guess? *twirls finger in air*

 

Volt's Overload. Okay, maybe don't get rid of this, but for the love of all that is holy increase the range and damage and cast time or something. No other of Volt's abilities benefit from natural talent, so it's not worth considering on him, yet that's almost the only way to make you not be a giant glowing target for the enemies while casting this. It's the worst damage ult, and damage ults already have super harsh drop-offs in high level or late-endless content.

 

Zephyr's Dive Bomb. Another instance of the augment mod being something the ability should have innately. Dive Bomb is just a way to get back down to the ground quickly, right now, it does very little damage and almost never kills anything unless you go out of your way to do so (which is wasteful).

 

Fireball - Its a good ability for a 1. It can stun a heavy unit for 6 secs? with panic while dealing good damage on headshots. It can also stun crowds since it has 50% proc chance against secondary targets. Can be used while reloading which is a plus in my book.

 

Tidal Surge - I've started using this ability recently since Hydroid is immune during the charge so I use it mostly to KD Gunners and Bombards without taking damage. Very good panic button.

 

Bullet Attractor - Ever used Pull then BA on a downed enemy so that you can safely rez an ally? Its basically a Sanctuary you can deploy on demand. Its funny to see Bombards KD themselves and their own allies too.

 

Ballistic Battery - 100k headshot damage on a level 60 heavy gunner with a single regular Soma bullet says this ability is good.

 

Sleight of Hand - Yes this ability is pretty lame although its decent if not good in corpus maps. Lazer grid perma stunning corpus and granting energy ftw.

 

Psychic Bolts - One of the abilities I agree shouldn't even exist.

 

Smite - KD + forced rad proc + stagger + can be used while reloading. Stop spamming ults on a single enemy and you'll see why Smite is good.

 

Rhino Charge - Its decent but it could use some work, agreed.

 

On Saryn's powers: Miasma is what is wrong with this frame. Her abilities are good (except maybe the current contagion) but because Miasma is stronger with less duration, people tend to just reduce duration to a minimum and just spam 4. I'm currently running both a melee build with Contagion + Regen Molt with high duration and a High duration Venom + overextended Miasma for the stun. Miasma builds turn boring and have horrible scaling past level 45 enemies.

 

Contagion - Should affect all of Saryn's weapons. That's all it needs. Venom's augment should be Contagion's. Also DE please swap names between Contagion and Venom.

 

Venom - With a high duration build + PT weap (or shotgun) Venom simply reks long endless games. Viral procs for everyone.

 

Well of Life - Another power made useless because of broken ults. Blessing needs as much a rework as this power does.

 

Rip Line - No idea why this power exist with coptering and air directional melee being a thing. I'm guessing it a relic from a different time like Super Jump.

 

Tesla - I don't use Vauban much because he is unplayable without spamming abilities and I simply refuse to play like that but Tesla is decent at closing off areas with elec procs. Just needs a bit of creativity unlike Vortex and Bastille as to where to put them.

 

Overload - IMO Volt's ult is not a damage ult. My main reason for using it is the elec proc stuns. Wish they were more spaced out so that they wouldn't overlap with themselves though.

 

Dive Bomb - While I agree that it shouldn't be its own ability its effect is pretty decent. Zephyr lacks much in terms of cc, not counting Tornado's throwing enemies randomly around the room which is sometimes dangerous, specially in a  defense, but DB's KD can be useful if used wisely. Run towards a crowd, jump and use DB = crowd is now on the floor and wont shoot you anymore. Not every ability needs to be a damage ability.

Edited April 22, 2015 by RexRgisIocus

[Bigbizz44]

I actually really like sleight of hand as an ability.  on corpus tilesets it adds some amazing elements to your side of the fight that no other WF power can do, such as: cool turrets, electric doors, console jamming, and general hazardous environments as well as energy regen.  and the augment is the only one that can be used to create legitimate landmines.

 

granted, grineer and infested tilesets don't really have anything on them to make sleight of hand a real wow factor, but that's due to the lack of environmental objects that can actually help out.

 

My only gripe with sleight of hand is how much mods don't affect the environmental hazards, such as blind range/duration and explosion range/damage.  Other than that I find the most fun using sleight of hand than any other ability.  I would be very disappointed to see it go.

 

*twiddles thumbs*

Edited April 22, 2015 by Bigbizz44

[(PSN)Dualisacat]

Zephyr's Turbulence. It would be a very good ability if it wasn't bugged.

 

 

Aw man, yeah, tell me about this one. I used to play Zephyr a lot more often, but Turbulence straight up not working has had me leaving her behind for quite a while. It's an ability which I always assume they're working on, though, which is why I didn't bring it up.

[LynxAmurie]

1)Mag's Bullet Attractor. 

2)Mesa's Ballistic Battery. Right now, Mesa is mostly only good for low level farming. (U WOT M80?)

3)Valkyr's Rip Line. 

4)Vauban's Tesla. 

5)Zephyr's Dive Bomb. 

6)Saryn's Contagion and Venom. (HAHAHA WHAT.)

 

I sort of agree on your other points but these rub me the wrong way.

1) Having just gotten Mag Prime, yes Bullet Attractor is situational but so is the situation of a level 40+ Parasitic Eximus bearing on your team surrounded by a cloud of mooks. It's perfect for that, and is fine on top of all projectiles dealing bonus damage to the target.

2) Ballistic Battery is not useless. It's free damage that scales off power strength. It's perfect for her. 

If you had said that Shooting Gallery was useless I'd be more inclined to agree since it jumps from player to player at random. But Mesa is perfect the way she is.

3) Rip Line can be used to skip parkour segments, pull allies, tear priority targets from a crowd, or be used in conjunction with Heavy Impact. Also, it's fun.

4) Tesla is also fun, and the augment is killer against Infested. Damage could use a tiny buff but eh.

5) Dive Bomb scales off power strength and time spent falling. It scales quickly. Heavy Impact is a perfect synergy for this ability, making it good for dropping into a horde of weaker or for weakening dudes.

6) Contagion...doesn't really feel good. It I wanted toxic damage on a melee weapon I'd bring it. I agree it is pretty limited, however...

Venom is Saryn's best ability. In fact, Venom is one of the best abilities in Warframe.

It deals Viral damage (!), spreads from the target enemy to ANYTHING hostile nearby, and will continue to spread for the length of the ability duration which should be high on Saryn for that purpose.

During that time it deals Viral procs. Saying Venom is useless is completely false.

There are few 'useless' abilities. Excalibur's Super Jump--despite being fun--is a little useless. Melee weapons can provide the same effect without having to bother with parkour. That's the only one I can think of that has no real applications in either the situation they are designed for or otherwise.

Oh and Mesa is not just for low-level farming, she's one of the best high-level performers out there. Just saying.

[(PSN)Dualisacat]

I sort of agree on your other points but these rub me the wrong way.

1) Having just gotten Mag Prime, yes Bullet Attractor is situational but so is the situation of a level 40+ Parasitic Eximus bearing on your team surrounded by a cloud of mooks. It's perfect for that, and is fine on top of all projectiles dealing bonus damage to the target.

2) Ballistic Battery is not useless. It's free damage that scales off power strength. It's perfect for her. 

If you had said that Shooting Gallery was useless I'd be more inclined to agree since it jumps from player to player at random. But Mesa is perfect the way she is.

3) Rip Line can be used to skip parkour segments, pull allies, tear priority targets from a crowd, or be used in conjunction with Heavy Impact. Also, it's fun.

4) Tesla is also fun, and the augment is killer against Infested. Damage could use a tiny buff but eh.

5) Dive Bomb scales off power strength and time spent falling. It scales quickly. Heavy Impact is a perfect synergy for this ability, making it good for dropping into a horde of weaker or for weakening dudes.

6) Contagion...doesn't really feel good. It I wanted toxic damage on a melee weapon I'd bring it. I agree it is pretty limited, however...

Venom is Saryn's best ability. In fact, Venom is one of the best abilities in Warframe.

It deals Viral damage (!), spreads from the target enemy to ANYTHING hostile nearby, and will continue to spread for the length of the ability duration which should be high on Saryn for that purpose.

During that time it deals Viral procs. Saying Venom is useless is completely false.

There are few 'useless' abilities. Excalibur's Super Jump--despite being fun--is a little useless. Melee weapons can provide the same effect without having to bother with parkour. That's the only one I can think of that has no real applications in either the situation they are designed for or otherwise.

Oh and Mesa is not just for low-level farming, she's one of the best high-level performers out there. Just saying.

 

- You just got Mag Prime? As in just got her? This is going to make me call into suspicion about how much time you've put into the game, and how much you've actually played some of these frames. I don't mean to be that jerk calling seniority or anything like that, but time input is a huge, huge part of understanding what works and what doesn't in the wide variety of encounters the game is going to put you into.

 

- I am seriously sticking with Ballistic Battery being nearly useless (and also a very boring ability). It's a small damage boost to a single shot that requires you to go out of your way to cast it to build that damage up. It's distracting and the pay-off is almost entirely negligible on most weapons, particularly those most commonly used in late void (super powerful automatic weapons). The casting time alone costs more time than damage you would deal just holding a trigger down on most weapons. If you're rocking a Vectis or Dread or something, sure, you can make your number a lot bigger, and then the use becomes conceivable, but that's pretty restrictive for a power to be conceivably useful, eh?

 

- Rip line is fun. I said I liked it at least twice in the thread, now. I just think it should be a lot cheaper, the 25 energy cost is pretty ridiculous for something less mobile than tail wind, worm hole, speed, etc. Valkyr synergizes poorly with energy effeciency and you usually want to cast this thing a lot of times consecutively for maximum enjoyment, but it's so, so not worth a mod slot because all it does otherwise is annoy your friends and yank an enemy out of a crowd.

 

- Why are people arguing Tesla is good? I am so baffled by this. Wow, it electric procs and stuns enemies. Wanna know what else stuns enemies? Bastille and vortex. And they do it a hell of a lot better and are generally on Vaubans modded to spam those things to the point where the idea of casting tesla is just like "hey I can put a lot of silly visual clutter on the screen, I guess this is entertaining." I have never seen a Vauban try to use tesla seriously, or maybe I did and it was so ineffective I couldn't notice. Someone please show me a video with how on earth this can be useful when you have vortex and bastille, abilities you can reliably stun more enemies with over wider distances for basically no cost when modded with an iota of sensibility. 

 

- How is Venom better than a gun with viral procs? How? Please explain this to me, or better yet show it to me in any demonstrated video. Viral/Radiation is the best combo for the void and grineer right now, and if you're desperate for viral procs, you can just shoot enemies and deal damage while dealing viral procs instead of wasting energy by casting this (and stopping firing while doing so). Saryn when properly modded for miasma can deal thousands of damage to all enemies in a 35 meter radius through shields while also stunning them briefly for your teammates.

 

Miasma builds are insanely killer up to 40 minutes in even T4S when properly modded (though you do need a gun dealing radiation to deal with bombards effectively, not to mention to clear nullifier bubbles), and that's often when most parties start getting bored and extract. I have never once played a Saryn and gone that far without dealing more damage than my teammates, and even tend to get the most damage delt up to 60 minutes. Beyond that, you've got to wonder what on earth you're using Saryn for, anyway, she's just not particularly built for very, very long endless. Even when Miasma's thousands of damage pale in comparison to how much you could be dealing with viral procs mega late game, the stun is still useful, while venom lacks that utility and just does what your guns probably already do better.

 

- Mesa is bad. Anything you want her to do, another frame does better. She is not "useless" in the sense that you can't do anything with her (she does some things alright!), she is useless in the sense that she is made obsolete by being outperformed by another frame on every sense you could find her useful except early on in defense modes where she has a good vantage point and can out perform Excal and Saryn's ultra nuking via range.

 

Excal and Saryn ultimately deal more damage with their ults and much more quickly due to being able to hit multiple enemies at once. Mesa's ult falls off hard and very quickly against particularly high level or high priority enemies.

 

Mirage is a much better buffmonster. So is Rhino, even. Her offensive buff is incredibly mediocre and random and her defensive buff is pretty nice, I guess, but doesn't shield her from melee (playing more into how that ult ain't so great, really). Mirage can not only enter shadow and have just as much defensive buff, but also has dopplegangers distracting fire away from her fairly reliably. The dopplegangers also add tremendous offensive utility, and the defensive buff she has can be turned into a MONSTROUS 500%+ buff pretty easily (one that can spread to the entire team if you're doing a camping strategy, which makes her incredible). Rhino's Roar is better than her offensive and defensive buff put together just by nature of it effecting your team, too.

 

Other frames are basically better at buffing by nature of how their abilities operate, too. Nova's Molecular Prime is more useful than all of Mesa's abilities wound into one, Trinity can shield and heal the entire team, Banshee's Sonar (especially with its augment) basically lets you rock over 1000% damage (up to 1400%!!!!) on every single enemy with your entire team, Valkyr's Hysteria makes her invincible and works wonders for making her an anchor to revive your team, Frost's snow globe can shield the whole team and a defensive objective and slow or freeze enemies that enter it, so on and so forth. Many frames have a single ability that outclass Mesa's entire repertoire of abilities, and then often have abilities on top of those to make them considerably better (and a lot more fun to play). 

 

Mesa looks amazing and is incredibly stylish, but she is a frame I never want on my team and never, ever see rise above becoming an anchor when I do play with her (which is often). She consistently gets least or close to least damage, revives, etc. She's just not more useful than other frames with high utility in how they perform, which is most of them. Any role she can fill I can perform better with multiple other frames. I guess if the combo she does with Limbo still works, there's that, though?? But that is so cheap and so boring and so obviously something the devs don't intend for the players to do. I'm almost certain something was done about that, but if it's still in the game, well, I guess she does have some purpose greater than a few other frames at something.

Edited April 23, 2015 by (PS4)Dualisacat

[TheBrsrkr]

Well of Life needs some looking at.

Iron Skin needs a good rework.

Banish needs an AoE. 

Same with Freeze.

Ice Wave could use a little buff too. 

Everything with Ember. Ember needs another buff.

Rip Line should pull you a little farther than it does now.

Link yould maybe get a buff, but I wouldn't count on it.

[Ironlixivium]

mirage's 2 and 4 are bad in general imo, except for the blind on the 4, but her 1 and 3 are so good its forgivable, can't say the same about nyx's 2 though, she has like 0 survivability. sleight of hand might actually be the worst ability in the game, though, considering how it explodes the ammo on the ground....making you unable to pick it up...can screw you over if you have a high rof weapon like the amprex equipped.

[Hypernaut1]

- You just got Mag Prime? As in just got her? This is going to make me call into suspicion about how much time you've put into the game, and how much you've actually played some of these frames. I don't mean to be that jerk calling seniority or anything like that, but time input is a huge, huge part of understanding what works and what doesn't in the wide variety of encounters the game is going to put you into.

 

- I am seriously sticking with Ballistic Battery being nearly useless (and also a very boring ability). It's a small damage boost to a single shot that requires you to go out of your way to cast it to build that damage up. It's distracting and the pay-off is almost entirely negligible on most weapons, particularly those most commonly used in late void (super powerful automatic weapons). The casting time alone costs more time than damage you would deal just holding a trigger down on most weapons. If you're rocking a Vectis or Dread or something, sure, you can make your number a lot bigger, and then the use becomes conceivable, but that's pretty restrictive for a power to be conceivably useful, eh?

 

- Rip line is fun. I said I liked it at least twice in the thread, now. I just think it should be a lot cheaper, the 25 energy cost is pretty ridiculous for something less mobile than tail wind, worm hole, speed, etc. Valkyr synergizes poorly with energy effeciency and you usually want to cast this thing a lot of times consecutively for maximum enjoyment, but it's so, so not worth a mod slot because all it does otherwise is annoy your friends and yank an enemy out of a crowd.

 

- Why are people arguing Tesla is good? I am so baffled by this. Wow, it electric procs and stuns enemies. Wanna know what else stuns enemies? Bastille and vortex. And they do it a hell of a lot better and are generally on Vaubans modded to spam those things to the point where the idea of casting tesla is just like "hey I can put a lot of silly visual clutter on the screen, I guess this is entertaining." I have never seen a Vauban try to use tesla seriously, or maybe I did and it was so ineffective I couldn't notice. Someone please show me a video with how on earth this can be useful when you have vortex and bastille, abilities you can reliably stun more enemies with over wider distances for basically no cost when modded with an iota of sensibility. 

 

- How is Venom better than a gun with viral procs? How? Please explain this to me, or better yet show it to me in any demonstrated video. Viral/Radiation is the best combo for the void and grineer right now, and if you're desperate for viral procs, you can just shoot enemies and deal damage while dealing viral procs instead of wasting energy by casting this (and stopping firing while doing so). Saryn when properly modded for miasma can deal thousands of damage to all enemies in a 35 meter radius through shields while also stunning them briefly for your teammates.

 

Miasma builds are insanely killer up to 40 minutes in even T4S when properly modded (though you do need a gun dealing radiation to deal with bombards effectively, not to mention to clear nullifier bubbles), and that's often when most parties start getting bored and extract. I have never once played a Saryn and gone that far without dealing more damage than my teammates, and even tend to get the most damage delt up to 60 minutes. Beyond that, you've got to wonder what on earth you're using Saryn for, anyway, she's just not particularly built for very, very long endless. Even when Miasma's thousands of damage pale in comparison to how much you could be dealing with viral procs mega late game, the stun is still useful, while venom lacks that utility and just does what your guns probably already do better.

 

- Mesa is bad. Anything you want her to do, another frame does better. She is not "useless" in the sense that you can't do anything with her (she does some things alright!), she is useless in the sense that she is made obsolete by being outperformed by another frame on every sense you could find her useful except early on in defense modes where she has a good vantage point and can out perform Excal and Saryn's ultra nuking via range.

 

Excal and Saryn ultimately deal more damage with their ults and much more quickly due to being able to hit multiple enemies at once. Mesa's ult falls off hard and very quickly against particularly high level or high priority enemies.

 

Mirage is a much better buffmonster. So is Rhino, even. Her offensive buff is incredibly mediocre and random and her defensive buff is pretty nice, I guess, but doesn't shield her from melee (playing more into how that ult ain't so great, really). Mirage can not only enter shadow and have just as much defensive buff, but also has dopplegangers distracting fire away from her fairly reliably. The dopplegangers also add tremendous offensive utility, and the defensive buff she has can be turned into a MONSTROUS 500%+ buff pretty easily (one that can spread to the entire team if you're doing a camping strategy, which makes her incredible). Rhino's Roar is better than her offensive and defensive buff put together just by nature of it effecting your team, too.

 

Other frames are basically better at buffing by nature of how their abilities operate, too. Nova's Molecular Prime is more useful than all of Mesa's abilities wound into one, Trinity can shield and heal the entire team, Banshee's Sonar (especially with its augment) basically lets you rock over 1000% damage (up to 1400%!!!!) on every single enemy with your entire team, Valkyr's Hysteria makes her invincible and works wonders for making her an anchor to revive your team, Frost's snow globe can shield the whole team and a defensive objective and slow or freeze enemies that enter it, so on and so forth. Many frames have a single ability that outclass Mesa's entire repertoire of abilities, and then often have abilities on top of those to make them considerably better (and a lot more fun to play). 

 

Mesa looks amazing and is incredibly stylish, but she is a frame I never want on my team and never, ever see rise above becoming an anchor when I do play with her (which is often). She consistently gets least or close to least damage, revives, etc. She's just not more useful than other frames with high utility in how they perform, which is most of them. Any role she can fill I can perform better with multiple other frames. I guess if the combo she does with Limbo still works, there's that, though?? But that is so cheap and so boring and so obviously something the devs don't intend for the players to do. I'm almost certain something was done about that, but if it's still in the game, well, I guess she does have some purpose greater than a few other frames at something.

You're a horribly uninformed player. You obviously don't understand anything beyond OP CC or damage nuke.

The argument "they can't do anything that another frame can't do better" is a short sighted argument only used when you have nothing to back up claims.

It's the combination of abilities that make a frame, not just the strength of one. Mesa has a unique combination of abilities that isn't easily replicated by other frames. Same goes for most if the frames. Mag isn't the best damage dealer or CC, b but it's the combination of her powers that make her viable. She isn't just hard CC or defense.

[(PSN)Dualisacat]

You're a horribly uninformed player. You obviously don't understand anything beyond OP CC or damage nuke.

The argument "they can't do anything that another frame can't do better" is a short sighted argument only used when you have nothing to back up claims.

It's the combination of abilities that make a frame, not just the strength of one. Mesa has a unique combination of abilities that isn't easily replicated by other frames. Same goes for most if the frames. Mag isn't the best damage dealer or CC, b but it's the combination of her powers that make her viable. She isn't just hard CC or defense.

 

"a short sighted argument used only when you have nothing to back up claims"

 

Says the person responding to someone who just wrote multiple paragraphs backing up their claims with a couple of sentences going into almost no depth. I see this so frequently done to other people on this forum, and it's one of the things that has kept me from posting for so long and to any great capacity, people constantly replying to others' detailed write-ups with something along the lines of "you're just being dismissive/you don't know what you're talking about." The stench of hypocrisy is incredibly overpowering, and I'm in very serious doubt you so much as read what I even said before even hitting "Quote" and writing up your angry little bit about how you disagree with me.

 

To quote myself - "Many frames have a single ability that outclass Mesa's entire repertoire of abilities, and then often have abilities on top of those to make them considerably better (and a lot more fun to play)."

 

I never said it's a single ability that makes these frames, but that a single one of those frames' abilities ends up being more useful than all of Mesa's working in tandem. Let's look at a frame with two abilities that outdo Mesa's entire four. With Mirage's 1 and 3 active, I am

 

- More powerful than about anything that can be done with ballistic battery, and much more consistently.

- Much stronger than if I'm lucky enough to have shooting gallery on me with better crowd control.

- Better defended than Shatter Shield if I'm in shadow, and possibly even better in light because the clones are distracting shots away from me rather than hoping my buff is big enough to make their damage negligible.

- More thorough destruction than Peacemaker anywhere past a few rounds or minutes into high level endless content.

 

Mesa's so-called diversity doesn't add up to how much Mirage can top all things she does but efficiently farm lower-end or early endless content with Peacemaker, and she adds very little to a team because her abilities are all pretty selfish (aside from the ever capricious shooting gallery). Beyond that, Mesa's abilities are kind of boring. Charge a shot up, get a defensive buff, stand still and do The Matrix poses. Wow. I'm really enjoying myself. At least when I play as Mirage I have hilariously quick rolls, faster sprint and incredible parkour boosts, with Mesa I can *reads wiki* oh, I can reload a pistol a little faster...?

 

I think you might *speaks in a really hushed whisper* actually be the real uninformed player who doesn't understand how to play the game. Wait, I might not be in the spirit of the forum yet, should I end this with a meme image?

 

(Do you see how childish and petty acting this way is? Or maybe you'd like to ignore me and just continue posting your threats to quit or petty snipes at other players? Oh wait, that's right, there's an ignore system)

[Hypernaut1]

You say that, yet Mesa is more often requested for missions like interception than Mirage. (She's requested for defense too, but for the wrong reasons).

My point is, yes you can single out abilities and throw out numbers and claim that Mirage is the better frame, but there are still situations where Mesa excels at where mirage doesn't.

So your claim that Mirage is better than Mesa doesn't hold water because it's not just about numbers.

Another point, maybe not all frames need to be "oh so awesome" Jack off all trades. So all your points about why Mirage is "better" than Mesa isn't even relevant unless your only goal is to trivialize content. I do GREAT with Mesa at all levels of play. She needs not to be more "user friendly- hur durr, laugh at anything lower than t4 wave 40" to be good.

She's fun, and her powers synergize well. I don't NEED her PM to out damage Mirage, I don't NEED her ss to provide more defense. The game it's easy enough as is.

Edited April 23, 2015 by Hypernaut1

[Bobtm]

I've gotta say, I don't feel like you're giving Mesa enough credit for what she's capable of as a frame Dualisacat.  The Mesa to Mirage comparison is actually an interesting one to take on though, since both are offensively oriented frames who can excel in dishing out damage.  Overall I feel like both of these frames bring something very worthwhile to the table.  I'd actually say the two even make a fairly reasonable team given some of their traits and general approach to combat.  Granted I wouldn't count them as anywhere near the highest level of synergy by any stretch, but they work alright together.

 

 To quote myself - "Many frames have a single ability that outclass Mesa's entire repertoire of abilities, and then often have abilities on top of those to make them considerably better (and a lot more fun to play)."

Which ones?  Not asking in a snarky way or anything of the sort.  I genuinely would like to know which frames you feel can automatically invalidate Mesa's existence with a single ability.

 

I've got at least a marginal level of experience with every frame within Warframe.  Chroma being one I have the least with as I haven't even gotten him to rank 3 yet.  And I can't think of any frame at all that would fall into the category you're noting above.  Especially not Mesa.  Then again part of the problem is the specific word "outclass" as... well this game has a few odd outliers.  Realistically speaking, Irradiating Disarm on Loki more or less scoffs at every other possible ability in the entire game by a landslide.  But at the same time, there are other abilities that are surely worthwhile to utilize even with something that outlandishly powerful in the game.  In a technical sense, Loki could be said to have this trait with anyone else around.  Seeing as how laughably easy it is to solo practically any content by using Loki.

 

[size=1]Obligatory note;  Loki doesn't need to be nerfed, and I don't attest to him being nerfed despite what it may sound like.  Disarmed enemy AI merely needs to be fixed.  RD is supposed to remove ranged traits, and that should remain.  RD is not supposed to permanently make all enemies helpless drooling babies.[/size]

 

Anyways to hop back over to the dynamic duo here, I see a lot of positives to the kits of both Mirage and Mesa.  Furthermore, Mesa at least has 4 abilities with a clear, present, and valid purpose.  Whereas Mirage can only claim this with 3 of her own abilities.  Beyond that, Mirage's passive actually comes with an inherent drawback to it... though it's not one nearly any player is going to be aware of.  Whereas Mesa's has only positive traits.  Both are good passives of course, but the edge here would (in my view) have to go to Mesa due to the nature of the traits in question.

 

Mesa's 1 can allow for extrordinary amounts of damage, so long as the player knows how to effectively capitalize on the traits of this specific 1.  Mirage's 1 doesn't require even a sliver of the same innate knowledge, but at the same time it cannot hold a candle to the amount of burst Mesa's can pump out.  Mirage's 1 is a combination of light damage mitigation alongside a DPS increase, it's not even the same type of tool.  Both of these abilities have merit to their use, but as different types of tools.  Personally I chalk this up to a draw in terms of effective usability.

 

On the 2s... there's nothing to say really.  Mirage has a parlor trick, while Mesa possesses a very solid tool.  This ability, when used with a team who sticks reasonably close together, adds a boon to the whole squad outright.  A clear advantage to Mesa here.

 

With their respective 3s, each has some common ground and not so common ground displayed.  Both of these traits can grant their given owner a great deal of damage mitigation... however neither of them is a catch-all damage mitigation ability.  Mirage's serves a dual purpose, being defensive or offensive based off of player positioning.  Both its respective variants provide a very worthwhile boost, however they are polarizing.  They can't ever be utilized simultaneously and you can't control where you are to as normal a degree as well.  Mesa on the other hand is pure defense here, yet only against bullets.  All in all, each of their 3 has its own respective positives and negatives.  They equal out, giving the advantage to neither of them as far as I'm concerned.

 

Lastly we hit up the 4s of these two frames, again having some in common and some not.  Mirage sports a combination ability which can serve in dealing damage and dealing CC in the form of blind.  Mesa however just rocks the damage here.

 

These two abilities are almost incomparables in my opinion... almost.  While each has both positives and negatives, I'd give the edge to Mirage overall, but not by a massive degree.  I'm honestly a bit tired of typing otherwise I'd have gone into detail here like I had prior.  To bum rush it, Mesa; quite fast, has concrete reliability, forces movement lock.  Mirage; dual purpose, allows free movement after cast, abysmally slow.

 

All in all, I'm just not seeing this blatant advantage.  Each frame shines in its own relevant way between these two offensive frames.