Making Bladestorm "bad-Ass"

[Yastin]

Okay, so the developers have often mentioned this topic, and honestly, I can see why. Currently, bladestorm is an awesome skill. In theory. But it ends up being rather a pain in actual use, so here's my thoughts on how they can take this skill, and make it make the player feel like a bad-&#! ninja, as well as fixing the issues it currently has.

 

1.) Marking. Yes, that's an odd word to use, but here's the thing, if you look at other "big kill" ults, you know that they're usually a lot faster, and a LOT more obvious, If you see the Mag lifting a bunch of dudes, you know to stop firing. If you see Volt floating, you know everything near him's gonna be crispy, etc. So, here's my suggestion, either have every enemy in the target area recieve a "mark of death", like a glowing kanji, to fit the ninja theme, or have him toss a smoke grenade or summon smoke into the area he's gonna make mincemeat in. This clearly defines the area of his attack, and it lets everyone know not to attack these dudes, because they're all gonna die.

 

2.) Speed. This is the most obvious thing needing improvement, and it can be done in such a way that it improves the aesthetic, as well. If smoke was used, even thin smoke, then simply having Ash dissappear, and a "slash" trail going through each enemy in sequence is fine, adversely, someone suggested having clones appear for a simultaneous strike, or, he could puff out of the smoke already in a "dashing slash" stance, and puff out before he even has to be animated, doing this at a slightly different angle for each enemy. In any case, the simple puff, slow swipe, puff, looks rather silly, and takes a bit too long, to boot.

 

And, as a bonus, why not make all enemies killed freeze where they are until the last kill, at which point, they can have that Shinobi-esque dramatic finish with them all ripping apart at once? Anyways, I suppose that's the extent of my feedback, but those are the only two problems I can really comment on, after my time with Ash.

[Drlathe]

First order of business imo is to fix the horrendous animation that accompanys his skill, also speed, it simply takes to long to go through all the enemys. Those are my thoughts on it at least. 

[Kynian]

I like the idea of clones doing simultaneous attack alot, and the puffing "non-animated-slash-dash" as well.

My suggestion was something like merging with shadows and throwing shurikens fro mte shadows.

Quite simply, he merges into the floor and the shurikens come flying straight to the head of enemies, coming out of their own shadows.

Or he emerges from a shadow, slash them, dives back in.

Should be a pain to do though. Or could be for another frame, idk.

+1 on your post either way

Edit: Forgot to say - the Kanji thing, and enemies freezing until the last kill is done to give a shinobi-esque feel to it was brilliant.

Although I pictured an Akuma-like kanji. (from street-fighter). The whole marking idea was great, as was the smoke.

I wish I could give it another +1.

Edited May 21, 2013 by Kynian

[Yastin]

First order of business imo is to fix the horrendous animation that accompanys his skill, also speed, it simply takes to long to go through all the enemys. Those are my thoughts on it at least. 

 

You... Read the first post, right? That's... Pretty much the entire point made with number 2. His ult is spectacular, in theory, but rather slow and silly-looking in practice, and they can fix this fairly simply.

 

 

I like the idea of clones doing simultaneous attack alot, and the puffing "non-animated-slash-dash" as well.

My suggestion was something like merging with shadows and throwing shurikens fro mte shadows.

Quite simply, he merges into the floor and the shurikens come flying straight to the head of enemies, coming out of their own shadows.

Or he emerges from a shadow, slash them, dives back in.

Should be a pain to do though. Or could be for another frame, idk.

+1 on your post either way

Edit: Forgot to say - the Kanji thing, and enemies freezing until the last kill is done to give a shinobi-esque feel to it was brilliant.

Although I pictured an Akuma-like kanji. (from street-fighter). The whole marking idea was great, as was the smoke.

I wish I could give it another +1.

 

Yeah, thanks for the feedback. I mainly want the marking as a quick fix, y'know? Since it sucks that friendlies are still killing guys I'm gonna murder in defence missions particularly, where their attention elsewhere can win or lose the round for us. And though I like the shadows thing, I like smoke more, just because that's his aesthetic. Smokey arm, teleports with smoke, smokebomb to go invis... Though a Shadow-based frame would kick &#!.

[Kynian]

Tiny little *bump*

I felt it deserved it.

[PositronicSpleen]

It's slow and buggy, I agree. I'd be using Ash a lot more if Blade Storm worked.

 

Good idea: have Ash create "shadow clones" so he can attack every available target at once. It would help if the targeting were more consistent, too.

 

Less Good idea: just make it a damage AOE like almost everyone else has.

 

Weird idea: make it a steerable, longer range Slash Dash. Almost like a variation of World On Fire.

 

 

Something else occurred to me: they need to drop the target limit. It is a really big weakness.

Edited May 21, 2013 by PositronicSpleen

[Kynian]

Another tiny little harmless *bump*. Felt it needed. Again.

[Feam]

Love the ideas!

With all of this community's imagination and the already employed-fix for Shurikens, Ash is starting to become my next goal!

I still hope Teleport gets some love, but these Bladestorm concepts are just all PERFECT in my opinion.

[BloodRiot]

The skill works fine most of the time, I think it fails when one or both of the following happens:

 

* enemies in range of the bladestorm's reach are split between rooms that are of diferent map tiles. Bladestorm will unfortunatly not cross outside of the initial target's tile.

 

* It seems lag will make bladestorm end prematurely or cause you to missjudge number of alive enemies, or distance/location of the targets.

 

I think the skill is mostly fine mechanically, the biggest issue is the time spent porting and attacking. Way too long and also yes... animation sucks.

 

I think the speed of teleport port and attack should be at least doubled and you don't really need new animations... just randomizing between many of the standard fast attack animations, charge attack animations, jump attack, slide attack etc everytime you go for an enemy would be more than enough to break the monotony........but a puff of smoke woudl be grand as well for badass effect :D

[Jaxomfaux]

i keep championing the multi-form attack :D

 

but yeah definately, the problem is the execution of the skill. it's too slow, too bland and has sloppy targetting.

 

and i agree that it sucks when i use my bladestorm only to have a volt/excal/saryn/whoever ulti and kill everything before i'm done with more than 1 or 2 of em. then i just hack air for the next 12 seconds, quite annoying. My wife has got told to knock it off more than once for that :D

Edited June 6, 2013 by Jaxomfaux

[VelenoHargreaves]

I thought something like ash runing slashing and dramatic pose at the end and every grinner being torned to pieces xD

 

 

Now, serious, Blade Storm need a rework, speed and animation. Ash's ult is the only lasts ult so far that keeps you invencible, other warframes have that too... The skill don't need to mark an enemy, just make some way to everyone to know that you are using your fourth skill and everyone in that area will most likely going to die ^^

[cedekane]

Ash with Shadow Clone Jutsu?...Totally Bad-Ash.  I could totally go for some animations where so of the clones are ganging up on the dudes...I'm sure the animation devs have seen Naruto before.

 

I had the same problems with the Ash frame...the time it takes and then lump on sometimes it only kills 3 guys when there are 10 in the area, and someone else came along with there ultimate anyway.  Good luck, something like this could make me return to Ash.

[Keiiken]

Okay, so the developers have often mentioned this topic, and honestly, I can see why. Currently, bladestorm is an awesome skill. In theory. But it ends up being rather a pain in actual use, so here's my thoughts on how they can take this skill, and make it make the player feel like a bad-&#! ninja, as well as fixing the issues it currently has.

 

1.) Marking. Yes, that's an odd word to use, but here's the thing, if you look at other "big kill" ults, you know that they're usually a lot faster, and a LOT more obvious, If you see the Mag lifting a bunch of dudes, you know to stop firing. If you see Volt floating, you know everything near him's gonna be crispy, etc. So, here's my suggestion, either have every enemy in the target area recieve a "mark of death", like a glowing kanji, to fit the ninja theme, or have him toss a smoke grenade or summon smoke into the area he's gonna make mincemeat in. This clearly defines the area of his attack, and it lets everyone know not to attack these dudes, because they're all gonna die.

 

2.) Speed. This is the most obvious thing needing improvement, and it can be done in such a way that it improves the aesthetic, as well. If smoke was used, even thin smoke, then simply having Ash dissappear, and a "slash" trail going through each enemy in sequence is fine, adversely, someone suggested having clones appear for a simultaneous strike, or, he could puff out of the smoke already in a "dashing slash" stance, and puff out before he even has to be animated, doing this at a slightly different angle for each enemy. In any case, the simple puff, slow swipe, puff, looks rather silly, and takes a bit too long, to boot.

 

And, as a bonus, why not make all enemies killed freeze where they are until the last kill, at which point, they can have that Shinobi-esque dramatic finish with them all ripping apart at once? Anyways, I suppose that's the extent of my feedback, but those are the only two problems I can really comment on, after my time with Ash.

 

I love this, I knew it needed fixing but didn't know how it could be done without making it clownish or over powered. My only suggestion would be using one animation for enemies killed by it and a different one for enemies that are only wounded. Maybe temporarily blinding the wounded enemy leaving the glowing Kanji/Glyph on those enemies for a few seconds so the rest of the squad knows its been hurt and is begging to be finished.

[BoompigXD]

When i hear "Bladestorm" i think of the ability in Warcraft III which had the same name and the hero spun around swinging his sword.

 

Maybe Ash can have this but he can move?

[Kynian]

When i hear "Bladestorm" i think of the ability in Warcraft III which had the same name and the hero spun around swinging his sword.

 

Maybe Ash can have this but he can move?

Ah no, please no. That would be some kind of berserker ability. It's like whirldwind skill of barbarian on Diablo. Not like Ash at all.

[S3raph]

I'd actually like if they fixed so it looks like the ps4 trailer...

It would look much cooler, but still wouldn't fix the slow execution problem

[Venarge]

The bladestorm is most likely loking like the one from the new trailer. Thats all I want as an Ash.

[Kynian]

If it looks like the trailer we have 2 major problems: Trailer it kills 3 enemies only, and it took a long time to do that. If it kills 12 and such, then DAMM that's gonna take a LOOONG time. Truth be told, I'm never going to use it.

Edited June 21, 2013 by Kynian

[Royce_Bracket]

http://m.youtube.com/?piggyback=2#/watch?v=B-3gLYMq-Vs Imo, a great way to improve Bladestorm would be to make it a 3d version of this. Basically, much faster with a special slash animation.

[Tombei]

It needs to be Swift, Deadly and Shadowy. He needs to execute the Bladestorm in few seconds, so fast that he leaves smoky afterimages of himself that disappear to the wind after everything is Dead! Present Bladestorm is too slow for Ash!

[RyojinOrion]

http://m.youtube.com/?piggyback=2#/watch?v=B-3gLYMq-Vs Imo, a great way to improve Bladestorm would be to make it a 3d version of this. Basically, much faster with a special slash animation.

 

What, an image of the character, a phrase said, and the screen wiggling around? Or did I just misunderstand what you were getting at?

[StrikeXII]

If it looks like the trailer we have 2 major problems: Trailer it kills 3 enemies only, and it took a long time to do that. If it kills 12 and such, then DAMM. Truth be told, I'm never going to use it.

Would you use it if instead of killing them one by one stylishly, you had clones all pop out killing them stylishly?

[Kynian]

Would you use it if instead of killing them one by one stylishly, you had clones all pop out killing them stylishly?

You completely missed the point. Took forever for him to kill 3 enemies in the trailer. If he were to kill 12 (or more of they tweak it), clip would be 8 minutes long instead of 4, with 4 minutes being only bladestorm being cast.

Answering your question, no, I would not use it if it was killing enemies one by one, no matter how stylish the kills, same as I dont use it now other than as an "oh crap!" button.

But if it were clones that killed all enemies stylishly at once I'd use it all the time - because the time taken to cast the ult would be significantly faster.

Although I like the idea of throwing a smoke bomb, having Ash completely disappear for a bit while several extremely fast blade trails chop enemies into mincemeat (and hopefully with some very stylish japenese kanji markings on enemies-to-be-killed to boot, though not required) would be my favorite approach to it, and by far the most simple one (kanji's excluded on "simplicity"), Like that more than the bunshin strategy to it, although the bunshin's aren't half bad either.

[Minnow23]

The first time I used blade storm I was blown away.

 

 

The second time I used blade storm I noticed how ineffective and silly it was.

 

And for these excellent ideas, good sir/madam, you get a bump from me.

[XNeonBlurX]

i like that idea, leaving after images or slash trails.

though the shadow clone idea would solve the problem of the skill being slow.

it doesnt look as cool. if you had light slash trails or something, they would surround the perimeter and zig zag everywhere.

everybody would be like "oh we got a badass over here"

And my friends. Ash is certaintly a badass.