Concern About Recent Bladestorm/steel Charge Buff.

[Magneu]

So now with Steel Charge effecting Bladestorm, (assuming it works like power strength), with a coordinated squad, you have a 2.4x multiplier, alongside whatever strength mods you have (with my 185% strength build, a full SC squad would yield (8880+(21,756 bleed)=30,636 damage per target. Yes, it is limited target, but there's a deeper problem with this buff.

 

Bladestorm is now an obscenely powerful ultimate (even more so than before) with a rather common aura in the squad; it has the killing power worthy of being an ultimate. However, what DE has done is just inflate numbers. Congrats, your damage will go a few levels farther than before, but it is still the same, non-interactive, click and forget ability.

 

This buff has ignored and eclipsed a fundamental problem with not only Ash, but many damage oriented frames (AKA anyone with a damaging kit with little to no utility (Ash can be forgiven here as he is a frame focused on damage)); this post will elaborate in particular on Bladestorm.

 

An ability should be:

 

1. Effective. Without a doubt, most ultimates (Avalanche, Miasma, Reckoning, etc) are highly effective at mid-highish tier missions, but fall off rather quickly once armor scales, while some (Exalted Blade, Blessing, Bladestorm, Molecular Prime) remain strong even in late game. Abilities, for the most part, fall under this umbrella, with each seeing a specific/general use (yes, outliers exist, which is why we have reworks). For this particular frame, Bladestorm, is devastatingly effective, while decently balanced (cast time, target cap) for game content, while still scaling decently well into end game. This aspect is extremely important from a balance point of view, in terms of ultimates, as they need to be strong, while not brokenly good.

 

2. Interactive. This is where many "P42W" critics point. Abilities like Exalted Blade and (hopefully soon) Hysteria require player input to achieve maximum potential (EB wave spam does not fall under here, IMO); even abilities like Vortex require careful player choice to achieve potential. However, standard "nukes" fail miserably in this department (again, the reason for reworks like Excalibur's), while abilities like Peacemaker and Bladestorm also fail; one is a hold LMB and watch everything die (while preventing others from helping the killing), one is a click and forget (and with a good build, that target WILL die, unless you're at quite high levels (AKA, 100+)). Standard nukes make up for this loss in the final category though.

 

3. Impactful. When Miasma goes off, or the Reckoning hang time is in effect, there's a moment of trepidation of sorts, then a thrill as hordes of enemies die in a spectacular fashion. Exalted Blade is drawn, enemies fall in stylish swordsmanship; badass achieved. Nova slams energy into the ground and an epic wave expands; 2legit. Rhino Stomps, that wobble sound effect is amazing, combined with sudden silence (I will never get tired of large range stomps). Trinity high fives the ground...moving on. Abilities 1-3 are somewhat exempt from this, but an ultimate should have kind of a boom feeling, where that choice had important consequences (usually a lack of energy/ability to recast, but Trinity and Fleeting Expertise exist). This is where Peacemaker (pow pow pow flat) falls apart, and Bladestorm falls super short. Sure, it's a cool killing montage, but after the first twenty minutes of playing Ash, it kinda turns into "...that's it?" You usually don't even get to see the enemy die, as you teleport away to glitchily stab another mook. Maybe it's lack of girthy sound effects, maybe it's the click and forget nature, maybe it's the simply "drop a foot from the air into a relaxed pose after slaughtering a horde" that makes me feel this way, but Bladestorm is just...meh. Radial Javelin feels more impactful.

 

Overall, Bladestorm needs a tune-up to feel at place in the fast paced universe of Warframe; the glitchy, halting animations no longer have a place in a game like this. I think it shouldn't become Exalted Blade 2.0 (ignoring my post from last week), but it need something to become an effective, interactive, impactful, and overall FUN ability, instead of the OG AFK simulator of Warframe.

 

Tl;DR: Bladestorm, as an ultimate, falls short of an ultimate move in multiple regards to game design/player agency.

Edited July 16, 2015 by Magneu

[geninrising]

I never understood why they didn't just have his ult send out the clones to do his dirty work and allow the camera to remain on the player allowing him to continue to move and perform other action. This I feel would make the skill all the more bad A as you could continue to work while the ult handled bidness. Beyond that perhaps a stun on targets not immediately killed like 1 second or 1.5 seconds?

 

Of course I would much prefer Ash becoming a shadow and all his melee attacks counting as finisher(without the need for the animations) so that Ash could simply go on a rampage ignoring armor. In the process I would have a vortex of blades circle him so he literally becomes a Blade Storm. These blades would deal damage equal to his melee damage plus power strength. The same for his in hand. Overall I think this would generate that OMFG factor that other ults have while still requiring player interaction and active gameplay to be strong. Of course I'm all for breaking the p42w cycle in WF.

[Kruglov]

I never understood why they didn't just have his ult send out the clones to do his dirty work and allow the camera to remain on the player allowing him to continue to move and perform other action.

 

This would be neat.

Both Ash and Nekros could both use tweaks like this.

 

It is a shame Bladestorm is so boring.

 

More like Bladesnore.

More like Snorestorm.

More like Snoresleep.

More like zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

[taiiat]

ye. Abilities that play the game for you is dull.

and it's a shame too, because Bladestorm is single handedly the most complicated Ability in the game. the number of Animations it has is ridiculous.

let's not do things that aren't Warframe though. we don't have 'Ultimates'. people call them that because of tropes from other games. Warframe doesn't work like that.

we have 4 Abilities. period. what they do greatly varies. each Ability Slot can be extremely effective, or not so much. just because it costs more Energy or is in a Slot with a higher number, doesn't mean it's more effective.

if we really want to make Abilities more interesting to use, useful in various situations (flexible), and all of that goodness - all 4 Abilities should be treated 'just as Abilities'. nothing sitting on a pedestal, just 4 Tools. they do many different things, and the Player chooses when to use what Tool.

we'll always have an Ability usage problem if we continue to make one or two Abilities just objectively better than anything else you could do in all situations. many Warframes are in this boat.

one Tool is just objectively better. if you're going to use a Tool, you might as well use the same one over and over because - it's just better. Abilities need to all be different from each other, and not defeat the purpose of each other. otherwise the same problem will always exist.

as for Steel Charge, you're going to be using a different Aura 99.100% of the time anyways, so whatever. you don't need the Damage, and you won't be bringing it normally anyways. if Enemies are high enough Level where you need that Damage for Bladestorm to Kill Enemies, well, you then also need Corrosive Projection to strip their Armor so that when you're not in Bladestorm, you also can actually Kill things.

[Racter]

I disagree with most of your post and your math is wrong. 185% power strength + 4x Steel Charge is 8880 per hit up front, ignoring combo multiplier, with a 3108 bleed for a total of 30636. Because it also scales off the combo multiplier and can be buffed on top of that by Radiant Finish/Savage Silence/M Prime etc, some of which double dip buffing both the initial hit (and indirectly, the bleed) and the bleed itself, it is also basically the only damage ult that never falls off. Prior to +Finisher augments, Transient Fortitude and easier combo multiplier maintenance via Rising Storm, I used it to kill enemies past level 1000 and it was still effective. I'd imagine now you could go much farther if you were so inclined, even with Nullifiers/Ancient DR to contend with.

 

I also think Peacemaker and Bladestorm look awesome, although the later seems to have been sped up too much relative to what I remember it being prior to my break from the game. I don't remember the animations/camera bugging out back in the day, either.

 

Different strokes.

[Magneu]

I disagree with most of your post and your math is wrong. 185% power strength + 4x Steel Charge is 8880 per hit up front, ignoring combo multiplier, with a 3108 bleed for a total of 30636. Because it also scales off the combo multiplier and can be buffed on top of that by Radiant Finish/Savage Silence/M Prime etc, some of which double dip buffing both the initial hit (and indirectly, the bleed) and the bleed itself, it is also basically the only damage ult that never falls off. Prior to +Finisher augments, Transient Fortitude and easier combo multiplier maintenance via Rising Storm, I used it to kill enemies past level 1000 and it was still effective. I'd imagine now you could go much farther if you were so inclined, even with Nullifiers/Ancient DR to contend with.

 

I also think Peacemaker and Bladestorm look awesome, although the later seems to have been sped up too much relative to what I remember it being prior to my break from the game. I don't remember the animations/camera bugging out back in the day, either.

 

Different strokes.

2000*(1.85+2.4)=8500, unless there's something I'm missing. And if you're relying on abilities of other warframes to be strong in uber later game, that isn't an indicator of an ability being fun to play.

 

EDIT: After some snooping, seems like the Steel Charge acts as a multiplier to final damage, so, even more damage than I initially thought!

Edited July 16, 2015 by Magneu

[Evanescent]

Bladestorm is:

 

Homer's drinking bird playing the game for you. The ability literally plays for you.

Isn't this what DE DOES NOT WANT?

 

It deserves a look.

Edited July 16, 2015 by Evanescent