Can We Talk About Ember? Because I've Got A Bone To Pick With De Over Her Kit.

[ArbitUHM]

I generally find Ember pretty good. It would be a big indirect buff to her if

- procs would not overwrite each other. An impact proc shouldn't knock an enemy out of a fire panic proc. They should overlap so when the imp proc ends they continue waving their hands in the air.

- there was more map variety for the void. During survivals, I can use cover to recast WoF, Accelerant, etc while zipping around the map. This makes her quite tactical and fun. For void defenses and interceptions, you're in a static spot and generally have some crappy little half-walls to protect you. With no invisibility or ability to tank, eating a train of bombard rockets or getting killed by Hail Mary nullifier/heavy gunner shots from an unprotected approach is nearly inevitable.

[Ryjeon]

Here's the results of my solo attempt at T4S: http://i.imgur.com/nsSlY7P.png I ate floor a few times near the end and used about 60 each of Energy and Shield restores, and a few Health and Ammo. But I could go farther or use less resources with teammates.

Edited June 22, 2015 by Ryjeon

[(XBOX)BLK THORN]

How about the fact that the primed version is the only frame that comes with two polarity slots the rest of the primes come with three.

Edited June 22, 2015 by (XB1)BLK THORN

[traybong111]

Well, than what is Ember supposed to be? Because I dare you to do a solo +40 minutes T4 Survival run with Ember.

 

 

40 minutes T4S solo isn't even remotely hard with Ember. I'll try to save a screenshot of melee-only Ember survival next time, but I'd say it's past 40 minutes with melee-only Ember that I start to have some real fun and frustrating moments. 

 

That said, I'll be the first person to admit that she could use some tweaks when it comes to her 3. Fire Blast is closest to pure CC she has (what with heat procs and knockdowns) and since both its damage and PBAoE functions are of questionable efficiency I'd like to see Fire Blast tweaked into a more CC-oriented ability. Oh and it also needs to be affected by range mods (just...why?! Did they forget something??)

 

And the reason I say I want to see her ult tweaked isn't because she absolutely needs it, but more out of my frustration at DE for constantly ignoring that ONE constant, near-universal feedback every single Ember thread ever has voiced. Nevertheless, knowing how it can incapacitate enemies (with or without augment) via procs I can't in good conscience demand a complete removal of its timer, so I'd compromise with slight increase to its duration and improved casting speed :V

 

 

Most of Ember's defenders jump on the level of CC she brings with her abilities - and that's fine, if you're not looking for much. The trouble is, her CC is unreliable compared to most.

 

Panic procs, and the knockback from Fire Blast, can be resisted if the target is performing another animation (like receiving any other status first) when the status is applied - and Fire Blast's the only way to apply Panic reliably anyway. World on Fire has a set number of explosions it can let off per second, and I for one have seen a lot of situations where enemies have gotten close and the explosions still fire off a half mile away since it's wholly subject to RNGesus. Accelerant has a stagger, but it only lasts for a couple of seconds; not really enough to lock an enemy down for a meaningful period, just to give her a couple of free shots, or a headstart on running away.

 

Her skills have incidental CC - which she can spam to perfection since she has so many that do basically the same thing, giving the illusion of consistency via minor extensions - but I wouldn't ask one to defend the cryopod past Wave 15, or lock down adds in a Trial. Her CC is there to protect her, and even then a little bad luck can completely screw her, especially if she needs to stop for any period. It's not a matter of being unfit for farming; if I can't reliably stun a target in one blast long enough to revive an ally or hack a console, it's not a stun my team can even use. Heaven forbid that was my last bit of energy, because I have about 2 seconds to refuel before the onslaught cometh.

 

Heat procs from her abilities scale with power strength. If you're finding her heat procs to be unreliable, try modding her power strength to be above 150%. I agree she's definitely not top tier when it comes to teamwork or energy efficiency department, but it's almost like anything that isn't perma-CC is instant trash in a lot of forumites' eyes. 

Edited June 22, 2015 by traybong111

[EinheriarJudith]

How about the fact that the primed version is the only frame that comes with two polarity slots the rest of the primes come with three.

 

if your only complaint is polarity slot then my suggestion is to stay clear of the amprex it has 0 polarity and imo is a strong rifle amoung the few considered to be top tier it takes 4 polarity if you have status elemental mods and 6 if you don't

[Archwizard]

Heat procs from her abilities scale with power strength.

 

Only for World on Fire, wherein the augment makes that sort of an irrelevant function anyway - but the bigger issue is its explosions not striking the same spot twice. 

[moonslightshadow]

The problem i see majorly with ember is shes a "CC" frame now. what happend to being the light armor nuker she was. Her new ult yes it can deal dmg in burst or over a time with enough eff. but the problem still remains you either have to spawn recast her ult or spam recast acclerent. her energy cost are becomeing to rediculus to keep up in end game due to lack of energy orbs as a game goes on. Being only able to stun end game is not the ember we know her to truely be. She was a nuker that was meant to be a nightmare to infected no matter what. It can no longer hold its own with infested unless you spam acclerent. even then it drops off fast due to ancients dmg reduction to all enemys.

 

In my honest opion and feel free to knock my idea am ok with being critizied. But they need to bring back the old ring ember ultimate. It did sustained dmg without a worry of massivly killing  your energy with each use. Keeping the dmg where it is i would still accept. but with the way her ultimate currently is you can not do enough AOE to save your self. let alone clear a group of enemys. The orginal ultimate damaged everything near her allowing for max range builds. Currently maxed ranges leaves the player open to be nuked them self Due to the largly single target aoes that barly does aoe.

Edited June 23, 2015 by moonslightshadow

[RealPandemonium]

I might just be one of the few with this "unpopular" opinion but honestly I think Ember is fine. She is the mechanics-wise most OP frame, her damage is AMAZING (and she can buff Heat damage on her own weapons, or even add that to teammate weaponry), she has incredible bulk CC, and she barely ever gets hit with procs for Heat etcetera. Few frames can compare with how she just shakes out crowd control out of her sleeve with the mere press of 2, knocking them over with her 3 and getting them out of her sight, and her 1/4 constantly making enemies cringe from the heat. Too much people think of her as a pure Damage frame, too little as a CC/Burst hybrid. It's depressing to see my favourite frame get called bad over her "risky" (if you find stunlocking enemies risky) playstyle.

I overlooked this post when I first read the thread.  It's nice to see people besides the usual two actually acknowledging that Ember can be both fun and powerful, which isn't something you can say for most frames.

[Hueminator]

Does the small blast from WoF scale with range mod?  If they don't, they should.

[Dragon_AV]

The field of fire better scale with stretch too, but then again it is a oberon gimmick.

The original fireblast was just bad and I doubt that it was properly tested. When they finally realised that it was almost useless that slapped the eximus effect on there. Even copy pasting hallowed ground would be better then what fireblast is now.

 

And to compare a modified fireblast (field instead of ring) and hallowed ground:

-Hallowed ground is mainly a proc remover/buff/radiation proc. Fireblast does more damage and is in general more damage oriented.

-Shape and placement is different as well, fireblast having a larger initial radius.

 

Both skills would look alike but IMHO not enough to call it a copy paste of each other.

[Hypernaut1]

The original fireblast was just bad and I doubt that it was properly tested. When they finally realised that it was almost useless that slapped the eximus effect on there. Even copy pasting hallowed ground would be better then what fireblast is now.

 

And to compare a modified fireblast (field instead of ring) and hallowed ground:

-Hallowed ground is mainly a proc remover/buff/radiation proc. Fireblast does more damage and is in general more damage oriented.

-Shape and placement is different as well, fireblast having a larger initial radius.

 

Both skills would look alike but IMHO not enough to call it a copy paste of each other.

People keep saying fire blast is bad, I don't get it.

I use it often. It provides cc when it procs. It decimates trash mobs for a good while. It pushes back crowds. It can protect an area for a decent time. Ours a great team utility when it comes to relieving pressure and revives, even if you're not the one reviving.

The only change I would really want is for enemies to take damage in the center

[ShortCat]

People keep saying fire blast is bad, I don't get it.

I use it often. It provides cc when it procs. It decimates trash mobs for a good while. It pushes back crowds. It can protect an area for a decent time. Ours a great team utility when it comes to relieving pressure and revives, even if you're not the one reviving.

The only change I would really want is for enemies to take damage in the center

If you need CC use #2 it is faster, cheaper and has no traveltime or LoS restrictions. If you need DMG use #4 and you can move and get even more enemies killed.

#3 does both CC and DMG,but the other 2 skills are far superior. And exactly that is the problem with Fireblast.

The ability itself is controversial, the flame ring damages enemies who stay in the ring but the inicial blast pushes them away?

[Dragon_AV]

People keep saying fire blast is bad, I don't get it.

I use it often. It provides cc when it procs. It decimates trash mobs for a good while. It pushes back crowds. It can protect an area for a decent time. Ours a great team utility when it comes to relieving pressure and revives, even if you're not the one reviving.

The only change I would really want is for enemies to take damage in the center

The problem is that the ring does low damage, so it becomes useless pretty quickly, and the status proc is not guaranteed, so the ring is out the window (for me).

The Knockback that is copy pasted from the fire eximus does push your enemies away, but ember has to get close to use her 2 and 4. You might have given yourself a breather, but nothing more. Especially if the enemies that you pushed away engage you at range.

[Hypernaut1]

If you need CC use #2 it is faster, cheaper and has no traveltime or LoS restrictions. If you need DMG use #4 and you can move and get even more enemies killed.

#3 does both CC and DMG,but the other 2 skills are far superior. And exactly that is the problem with Fireblast.

The ability itself is controversial, the flame ring damages enemies who stay in the ring but the inicial blast pushes them away?

i use 2 and 3. fireblast still provides decent DoT in my experience. Its great for isolating bigger threats to if you cast in the air while you jump towards an enemy. it pushed back the fodder, and gives you room to focus on one guy. By itself, its not a nuke, but used in combination with weapons it works great. Ember doesnt need to be a pure nuke caster.

 

I like that the ring pushes enemies back. its really the main reason why i use it over WoF. this is why i dont get the critique that it "pushes enemies away" when i think thats the best thing about it. It pushes mobs away and CCs them long enough to finish off with my primary, or long enough to revive, or long enough to defend pod. Sure her 2 stuns too, but why not use both?

 

IMO , embers skills work great together. 

[RealPandemonium]

The flame wave on Fire Blast shouldn't push enemies out of the ring.  It should begin just outside of the ring to push everything else away and leave enemies struck by the initial damage as meatshields for Ember while they burn.  The initial damage should also not be limited by line of sight the way the flame is.  DE will probably never fix this, though.  They don't seem to care even remotely about fine-tuned fixes for frames anymore; they're going the League of Legends "replace it with something totally new and pretend we didn't abandon ship on our original design" way of doing things now.  I guess good things can't last in the end.  

[Archwizard]

The flame wave on Fire Blast shouldn't push enemies out of the ring.  It should begin just outside of the ring to push everything else away and leave enemies struck by the initial damage as meatshields for Ember while they burn.  

 

The problem with that being that it offers virtually no defense against enemies who are too close. If they're not exactly on the circle when you cast, it would have no effect.

[RealPandemonium]

The problem with that being that it offers virtually no defense against enemies who are too close. If they're not exactly on the circle when you cast, it would have no effect.

According to my tests DE added the initial damage instance (which hits the circle and everything within the circle as well) back into the power, so enemies inside the circle would still burn in place from the 100% Heat proc.  It's less reliable now, though, because it's affected by the same line of sight limitation as the flame wave (seems like an oversight to me since it wasn't like that at first.)  

[Dragon_AV]

According to my tests DE added the initial damage instance (which hits the circle and everything within the circle as well) back into the power, so enemies inside the circle would still burn in place from the 100% Heat proc.  It's less reliable now, though, because it's affected by the same line of sight limitation as the flame wave (seems like an oversight to me since it wasn't like that at first.)  

So does fireblast have a guaranteed heat proc or not?

[RealPandemonium]

So does fireblast have a guaranteed heat proc or not?

It does; both on the initial damage as well as the flame wave.  The heat proc's overlap with the knockback of the flame wave can be bizarre, though.  

[traybong111]

It does; both on the initial damage as well as the flame wave.  The heat proc's overlap with the knockback of the flame wave can be bizarre, though.  

 

So...what was the point of Fire Fright again? ;__;

[Archwizard]

So...what was the point of Fire Fright again? ;__;

 

The idea was that it would function similarly to Bastille: Enemies charge at you and burst into flames when they hit the ring, perpetually stunning them with the ring. Since it has a base knockback, charging is a prerequisite for Ember's intended (Infested and light Grineer) prey.

 

Of course, the problem with this is that it's more heavily reliant on timing - the ring has to pulse damage (since it's an environmental effect, not a debuff to the enemy) the instant they touch the ring to cause the stunlocking. In fact, most enemies who are likely to charge into melee are fast enough to only catch the pulse on their way out of the flames (particularly as I've seen with Chargers many times, their momentum carries them out regardless), so that they receive status by the time they get inside the circle, but then tear into you when it fades.

 

According to my tests DE added the initial damage instance (which hits the circle and everything within the circle as well) back into the power, so enemies inside the circle would still burn in place from the 100% Heat proc.

 

Okay, but that still doesn't buy you much time, especially if you need to use the skill as a defense while, say, reviving an ally or hacking a console (while it's not very strong for such scenarios, it's really Ember's best option for them if she's surrounded).

 

While I'm aware of your ulterior motive to bring back the strategy of spamming Fire Blast in-place to use the ring offensively, DE seems intent on making it her obligatory defense mechanism (with particular ignorance to its actual effectiveness as such).

 

Now I will say, if they changed the Fire Blast to deal damage within the ring, then the augment would be worthwhile for this particular issue (since it could, like Bastille, perform a target check every second an enemy is within the ring). It would only leave out the knockback pushing foes out of the CC - which I still don't mind, considering over-reliance on an augment to compensate for an ability's weak effects is no better than designing an ability and willfully withholding a vital part of it.

Edited June 25, 2015 by Archwizard

[RealPandemonium]

So...what was the point of Fire Fright again? ;__;

AFAIK it gives the fire ring 100% proc chance on every damage tick so enemies are always set on fire whenever they enter it.

 

Okay, but that still doesn't buy you much time, especially if you need to use the skill as a defense while, say, reviving an ally or hacking a console (while it's not very strong for such scenarios, it's really Ember's best option for them if she's surrounded).

 

While I'm aware of your ulterior motive to bring back the strategy of spamming Fire Blast in-place to use the ring offensively, DE seems intent on making it her obligatory defense mechanism (with particular ignorance to its actual effectiveness as such).

The 5 seconds of burning from the Heat procs is most of the time it takes to revive someone and if you have WoF running it will more than likely set the enemies back on fire as soon as they recover from the Fire Blast proc anyway.  

 

I agree that Fire Fright should fill the "hole" in the ring with fire and proc 100%.  That way you can get real safety from it (and cheese of course but, hell, I'm not winning this war.)  

 

Know what's really dangerous, though?  Taking a cluster of Napalms or what have you and then pushing them all to different parts of the tile.  Kinda defeats the purpose of being safe, which is why Fire Blast is pretty far from a panic button.  Half the time it just makes the S#&$storm worse.  

Edited June 25, 2015 by RealPandemonium

[Archwizard]

Know what's really dangerous, though?  Taking a cluster of Napalms or what have you and then pushing them all to different parts of the tile.  Kinda defeats the purpose of being safe, which is why Fire Blast is pretty far from a panic button.  Half the time it just makes the S#&$storm worse.  

 

Thing is, I don't think it's intended for that type of thing. Ember's description has always been "a nightmare for light-armored units" - like Scorpions, Butchers and Infested. Fire Blast is intended to keep melee units away, just like the damage component of Overheat was intended to punish them for coming too close.

[RealPandemonium]

Ember's description has always been "a nightmare for light-armored units"

Frame descriptions have pretty much never been accurate and this goes doubly for frames that have had numerous revisions since their description was written (probably before the frame's design was even finalized.)

 

The flame wave is only on Fire Blast because a gaggle of vocal non-Ember players relentlessly campaigned for it on the forums; DE didn't really think it through.  They've been phoning it in with frame revisions for a number of updates now.  Maybe the next few revisions will be quality, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Edited June 25, 2015 by RealPandemonium

[Djego27]

Frame descriptions have pretty much never been accurate and this goes doubly for frames that have had numerous revisions since their description was written (probably before the frame's design was even finalized.)

 

Embers description should be: "A nightmare for not gunplay and movement focused players, the 2. best scaling dps frame(first is mag, miles ahead but also only under certain conditions) with a rather vertical learning curve and without any kind of safty net for others."

 

My biggest issues with Ember is that it is a perfectly working skill based dps frame(armor/shields/aura mechanics, a good ember player does bypass them all what combinded with a accelerant makes Embers dps at high levels hillerious good) in a game full of broken scaling mechanics(getting one hit killed by instantly and ulimited respawns is bad, armor/shield/aura mechanics that are only ok if you bypass the hole mechanic with aura/status or ability use is plain horrible), hillerious drawbacks for host/solo and tons of bugs and lag, what is even more deadly then getting one hit killed by high level units all day long(yeah your CC takes 1 second to affect the target that can kill you 3 times till this point at high levels since we can't fix that long sessions build up tons of lag, even for hosts, gg).

 

Edit: Ember is not a bad frame, it is just that the frame does only shine at high levels(80+, full armor/shield/no hard CC vs Infested) or solo where at the same time the game really punish you for useing a glass cannon dps frame, outside of a perfect CC setup, where a banshee or nova is just the better choice to add CC and boost the dps of the hole team.

Edited June 26, 2015 by Djego27