So Why Do So Many People Hate On Zephyr?

[cittran]

Hum, personally, I dislike the facts that:

1.) - we can't hover around while in air with her first power.

2.) - her 2 is underwhelming. The sound and fall is epic, but the result is pathetic. She does not benefit of anything when using it. The augment doesn't even fix this fact.

3.) - her 3 is really powerful, +augment yay, but very unreliable, especially against rockets and napalm, which are the situations where we need a deflection the most. Except that, one of the best abilities in the game.

4.) - her fourth? lol. Totally random, absolutely unreliable. Never targets what's needed, appears at 3km, moves stupidly, the tornadoes have a tiny suck area, but a absurdly wide power the throw away,  zero control, cannot cancel, throws enemies in random places, once they're sucked, really hard to hid them, annoys allies, is hard on the performance side, does not remember the element infused within the tornadoes in the last cast... one of the worst ultis of the game imo.

5.) -modding Zephyr is a nightmare: we need duration for her 3d, but duration for her 4th is a pain. Strength has no really beneficial effect. Reach is useful for her 2d and 3d, but a pain for her 4th

6.) - I don't like her textures. I never managed to make her look cool, with any color scheme (and I have many palettes). I hate those 'grey' parts of her body, uncolorable (these ugly parts are on several warframe, but Zephyr is one who suffers the most of their ugliness).

 

Usually, I just use her 3d ability. And the 1st one to reach higher positions (I do not use the aerial part of her 1st, it annoys me). And get bored after one or two mission, then put her in my arsenal for another 2 months.

 

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(I added the numbers so I can refer-back to them with responses.)

 

1.) While I admit this would be kinda cool, I can't say I'd truly use it all that often, mostly because there aren't enough tilesets that would give me the vertical clearance to use it properly. In that frame of mind, then, the #1 needs something to make it more useful. (Especially considering that we have bullet jumping to launch us upwards now...)

2.) ALL OF MY FECKING YES. What I wouldn't give to have a useable-on-the-ground ability that performs an airburst for knockdown.

 

see:

Avatar: The Last Airbender

 

Something like

this:

https://web.archive.org/web/20151125225742/http://49.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrhlh5Z4OD1qbbbw4o1_500.gif

 

this:

https://web.archive.org/web/20151125225713/http://45.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lm899qruS41qceiz6o1_500.gif

this:

https://web.archive.org/web/20151125225734/http://49.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lo4vezp8rE1qceiz6o1_500.gif

 

or my personal favorite, this:

https://web.archive.org/web/20151125225520/http://45.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqx8cmSpiM1r1w4gno5_500.gif

 

 

3.) Definitely agree. Ability is extremely powerful, augment makes it even moreso, but it does need work against dem rockets.

4.) Again, YUP. Needs some heavy reworking, or -- ideally -- just replace it entirely.

5.) Strength's only benefits are really found when modding for Jet Stream -- which I totally love as a mod -- so I agree that it either needs some heavy reworking, or a they need to make it scale properly.

6.) While I've found a color scheme that I don't find truly glaring, I agree -- the textures aren't well-fitted to the frame. That needs some work.

 

[achromos]

When zephyr first came out... she used to LODGE items into ceilings if you were lucky or just fling them off the map.

 

Now...

 

Imagine if you will if you got a stalker drop... that Zephyrs tornado just happened to fling OFF the map.

 

Yea.

[Terrornaut]

I used Zephyr for a long time after she came out.  Lots of people complained/offered feedback about Divebomb and its ineffectiveness and DE had no interest, so we're stuck with a useless ability.  Overall though, she is a very useful frame and a great survivalist.

 

Tail Wind is great, but again, it involves use of DB. DB should just be absorbed into tail wind and its functionality activate when you TW at the ground or into a wall...that way you can just crash into things and have a ton of fun. A TON of fun lol.for..me anyway.  Divebomb is generally useless unless you go for a tornado aug power strength build, or (like you're better off) going with a high ranged build and throwing in Divebomb Vortex.  DBV becomes much more attractive and actually worth something at that point, but otherwise, DE has given us yet another frame with 3/4 a kit just for S#&amp;&#036;s and giggles.

 

Turbulence is unreliable, but you can do some interesting things with it by varying range (sometimes I swear its affected by power strength but...it isn't.)  However, you really don't feel the unreliability until you start going against level 50+ things when those shots start hurting.  If you have very high range on Zephyr though, you can pretty much tank and deflect for your team if they're somewhat near, and outright block corridors for people.  I really do wish it had more of a guarantee.  Relying on RNG for powers absolutely sucks and kind of goes against the general design of almost all the abilities in the game...

 

Tornadoes aren't actually very random.  With higher range, they'll seek out targets much better (and upon cast go after targets much better).  Also with higher range comes a much needed increase in vortex range on the tornadoes, as they'll really start grabbing things from afar.  The best way to make use of Tornadoes though is to hop into crowds and then tornado.  Its an emergency CC ability, or a small corridor lockdown ability, rather than something you want to keep up all the time. 

 

You can, however, deal some serious damage with the tornado augment and high power strength.

 

Don't build Zephyr for duration or power (unless you want to use 4 augment), she really doesn't need it.  You'll get much, much more use out of her if you go efficiency and range.  You honestly don't need duration to increase TW's distance unless you MUST go full range across open area tiles.  Otherwise, great efficiency and long range will help her offer the most to her and her team.

[Autongnosis]

You can have all three. I run a 180% duration, 170% efficiency, 180% range build.

 

In order, what i feel some are overlooking:

- Zephyr IS localised CC. You can knockdown with Tail Wind's takeoff maneuvre, you can knockdown AND ragdoll with Divebomb augmented, you can ragdoll and trap with Tornadoes

- I don't see how Turbulence is unreliable. Maybe you're butchering range too much? The only things that hit me when i'm in Turbulence are melee units and Bombard rockets - that unless i'm Flying 40m away with a bulletjump+tailwind. I went up to 40m in a T4 survival a couple of times and attempted a 60min run once (had to abort around 50 min due to time issues mainly), and Turbulence was shielding me from basically any incoming fire just by not standing still and Flying around.

- The amount of reduction to incoming fire you can apply if you're in an open room is pretty damn good, you can keep Tornadoes around and they keep pumping enemies all over the place, and you have multiple ways of giving yourself breathing room by knocking down/ragdolling things. To the guy who said that DB is useless because you can ground slam, you must tell me what melee you are using to get a 22m range ground slam. I want that now.

 

Thing is, to make the most out of Zephyr you need to be mobile at all times and have the presence of mind to alternate TW takeoffs, DBV grouping ragdoll and Tornadoes to control the battle and spawn flow so as to have enough free room to maeuvre and enough enemies down to reduce the risk of melee units and AoE homing stuff hitting you.

 

Really, i was surprised by how insanely good Zephyr is. What i can say is that she's a bit cast-intensive, yeah, but other than that - goodness.

 

If DB ever gets grouped togeether with TW well, i wouldn't be sad, but she at best needs some tweaks. She's nowhere near as bad as some of the posters here make her out to be. She's just less straight-forward.

[Aengil]

I think she's a beautiful frame.

 

That aside, there are a few things that make people glance over her. She doesn't really have any synergy with any kind of team composition for the types of missions available, and her cc is more random than say, Loki or Nova who can just press 4 and immediately debuff the entire area.

 

Her first three abilities don't offer anything to a team, and the damage/usefulness is pretty low on them as well. Granted, her 3 is pretty useful, but that is nowhere near enough to compensate for her lack of other things people look for (damage, c, x% increased damage multipliers). 

 

She has a cool theme. It's just a shame that she doesn't bring much to the table.

[Autongnosis]

On that i agree - Zephyr is not really a team frame, not even with Jet Stream.

[RealPandemonium]

Tornadoes have not been able to move drops for literally years now.  Idk how this still finds its way into discussions even now.  

  

The randomness of her 4th ability and the uselessness of the 2nd (Why waste energy, when you can ground slam with a melee weapon?)

Not every melee weapon has a good ground slam, and the animation can be slow as well.  DB just needs more benefits with height and a quicker, less restrictive animation in order to be good.  

 

On that i agree - Zephyr is not really a team frame, not even with Jet Stream.

Eh, giving quasi-invulnerability to everything nearby is pretty good for your team.  I think the main complaint here is that she doesn't have a cheesy Bastille/MPrime/Disarm alternative.  Apparently, working for your invulnerability means that it might as well not be there.  Her mobility, durability, and clutch CC also make her a great medic.  This is all before the potential boons of Jet Stream.  

Edited November 26, 2015 by RealPandemonium

[Nazrethim]

*Mazinger Z instrumental in the background*

 

Soaring, in the sky, high above the clones
Super aviator Warframe Z!
Murdering anything below her at will
Crashin on enemies in a DIVE BOMB!
Tornado! Turbulence! ascending with a Tail Wind!
In her hand a glaive prime ready to kill the remains
Zephyr Go! Zephyr Go!
Warframe Z!

[Autongnosis]

Eh, giving quasi-invulnerability to everything nearby is pretty good for your team. I think the main complaint here is that she doesn't have a cheesy Bastille/MPrime/Disarm alternative. Apparently, working for your invulnerability means that it might as well not be there. Her mobility, durability, and clutch CC also make her a great medic. This is all before the potential boons of Jet Stream.

The problem here is that unless team mates stay within hugging distance Turbulence does not really protect them all that much since all hitscan projectiles not aimed at her will completely bypass Turbulence. That's made even harder by the fact that (at least, i do) Zephyr plays in an extremely mobile and 3Dimensional way while most frames are somehow stuck on a 2D space despite bulletjump being a thing.

I agree on the rest though, although what i personally meant is that her CC is very self-centered and local, and that she has no way to directly give buffs to allies other than movement speed :) That said i find a good Zephyr player a huge asset,since she's still able to create local superiority pockets, to do area denial/clustering on a micro scale, and to do clutch revives/speedy LS runs.

EDIT: And i particularly second one bit, the one about her not having a quick cheese button. Many so-called bad frames have that issue, but the point is they're not actually bad at all :) They just require you to think a bit more about how you play and how you use your skills.

Edited November 26, 2015 by Autongnosis

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

If a frame doesn't have an ultimate ability that doesn't complete an exterminate mission for you, it means it's terrible according to this community.

The only real way to do anything is to get a frame and form your own opinion based on if you can adapt the frame to your playstyle, or adapt your playstyle to the frame.

It also consumes bullets (instead of redirecting them.) And it adds status to enemys while ragdolling them. I mean the status is nice and all but its basicly over once they'r aviable again cause floating in the tornados actually PROTECTS them.

The turbulence augument was nerfed from doubled firerate to doubled travel time (useless)

The tornado augument offers solid dps but the targeting is broken (useless)

And his travel potential became useless with parcour 2.0. (Useless)

She is overall pretty damn useless atm.

Edited November 26, 2015 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[(XBOX)BluAina]

Opinions are opinions, meta usually dictates players opinions and if it ain't killing it suuux jk

[tnccs215]

I dont use her much, but she is a really fun frame to use, and almost a niche frame to master.

If you just want some fun, get the turbulence augment and a tonkor, and get some friends todo the same. Swear, every run is a fun run.

[Terrornaut]

You can have all three. I run a 180% duration, 170% efficiency, 180% range build.

 

[everything]

 

Really, i was surprised by how insanely good Zephyr is. What i can say is that she's a bit cast-intensive, yeah, but other than that - goodness.

 

If DB ever gets grouped togeether with TW well, i wouldn't be sad, but she at best needs some tweaks. She's nowhere near as bad as some of the posters here make her out to be. She's just less straight-forward.

 

**Multiquote screwed me and I can't type between quotes lol, so bold text it is.  I pretty much agree with you with everything.  Turbulence has just been too weird to me at times where I've been one shot out of it by non bombards/aoe on more than one occasion.  The ability (unless it was patched in that period I stopped playing from chroma to equi and I missed it in my patch notes catchup) only offers a (strong) chance to negate ranged damage, but not a guarantee.  If it was 100%, she'd basically have a shattershield for the team, which...would be pretty sweet.

I think she's a beautiful frame.

 

That aside, there are a few things that make people glance over her. She doesn't really have any synergy with any kind of team composition for the types of missions available, and her cc is more random than say, Loki or Nova who can just press 4 and immediately debuff the entire area.

 

Her first three abilities don't offer anything to a team, and the damage/usefulness is pretty low on them as well. Granted, her 3 is pretty useful, but that is nowhere near enough to compensate for her lack of other things people look for (damage, c, x% increased damage multipliers). 

 

She has a cool theme. It's just a shame that she doesn't bring much to the table.

She brings plenty to the table, though it depends on her build.  Her most obvious forms of contribution come from range builds, but honestly, there are a ton of dull standard shooter players who don't bring much to the table other than being able to press 1-4.

 

Just watch the Zone of the Enders 2 full trailer (one of the best trailers in the history of trailers, in ways), and replace everything about Orbital Frames with Warframes, and that's basically what's going on.

 

 

Tornadoes have not been able to move drops for literally years now.  Idk how this still finds its way into discussions even now.  

  

Not every melee weapon has a good ground slam, and the animation can be slow as well.  DB just needs more benefits with height and a quicker, less restrictive animation in order to be good.  

 

Eh, giving quasi-invulnerability to everything nearby is pretty good for your team.  I think the main complaint here is that she doesn't have a cheesy Bastille/MPrime/Disarm alternative.  Apparently, working for your invulnerability means that it might as well not be there.  Her mobility, durability, and clutch CC also make her a great medic.  This is all before the potential boons of Jet Stream.  

Pretty much it.

 

People are generally lazy/weak/poor players.  If its not the best then its no good.  Those people usually end up being the majority and the closest meta huggers there are, and most of the time they aren't anywhere near the top players. They're the people that (don't actually, but think they do) need all the crutches they can get.  There are frames that definitely need work, but there is not one bad frame in this game.  However, if you aren't creative, or are a very standard shooter player, you aren't going to get much mileage out of a lot of frames and some guns in this game.  People will blame everything else before they say they're lacking something.

 

Every frame has tools to keep the team alive and offer fair survivability, you just have to play to that frame's strengths and philosophies.  Some people see any kind of effort as poor or weak though, so, can't do anything about that.

Edited November 26, 2015 by Terrornaut

[(PSN)teh1tank]

If a frame doesn't have an ultimate ability that doesn't complete an exterminate mission for you, it means it's terrible according to this community.

 

The only real way to do anything is to get a frame and form your own opinion based on if you can adapt the frame to your playstyle, or adapt your playstyle to the frame.

 

No. Just no. That's very presumptuous of you.

 

The reason I personally don't like Zephyr is because she is indeed ugly, and her ultimate is horrible at CC. Most 4 abilities either clear a room using pure damage, or allow you to CC enemies enough to either buy you time or kill them easier.

 

That's not the case with Zephyr though. She doesn't do nearly enough damage to kill anything with her ultimate. As well as the fact that she doesn't really CC anything. She just randomly flings her enemies around making it even more difficult for teammates to kill them. It also makes defense missions take forever to finish just because of the horrible duration of her ability.

[w00tm0ng3r]

Well her 1 is basically a bullet jump that costs energy and has a horribly clunky delay before you can cast it again so you can't actually fly with it.

 

Her 2 is just a melee ground slam that costs energy.

 

Her 3 is amazing but seems to have gotten tweaked at some point. It used to be that perching on the cryopod in void missions would basically make the mission un-losable since almost everything fires a projectile and heavy gunners would never hit anything. Now I'm finding that they still can't hit me but they don't have any problems shooting the objective, so I switched back to Frost.

 

Her 4 is completely garbage. It's like Hydroid's ult but even less reliable, does even less damage, and frankly most of the time just makes the enemies harder to shoot.

 

Basically, compared to Frost her 3 is less reliable but does at least hold up under fire. Her 4 however is not even comparable to Avalanche. Avalanche hits everything in a large area, has no reliability issues to speak of, does immensely more damage, shreds armor, and freezes enemies instead of throwing them everywhere.

[(XBOX)Skode]

Zephyr was great, she was my main for Rail Conflicts... now Parkour has blunted her unique edge. She needs a rework now IMO

[RealPandemonium]

The problem here is that unless team mates stay within hugging distance Turbulence does not really protect them all that much since all hitscan projectiles not aimed at her will completely bypass Turbulence. That's made even harder by the fact that (at least, i do) Zephyr plays in an extremely mobile and 3Dimensional way while most frames are somehow stuck on a 2D space despite bulletjump being a thing.

I was under the impression that Turbulence's -accuracy aura applied generally, and not only to shots aimed at the caster.  Gonna test this.  

[(XBOX)EcG ScoPEsXZz]

I really like the idea of Zephyr and love how she looks. But I refuse to commonly use her, here's why.

 

 

1. Tail wind is pretty pointless with parkour 2.0, especially since if you're wanting to fly with it, it's only useful outside and scaling the map in quick succesion isn't really required. Simply doing an upward bullet jump and floating gets you far enough and your aim is more accurate. The only reason I would even consider using this is for the AOE stun on use, which has a minute impact.

 

2. Dive bomb is also very pointless as it does ludicrously low damage and a ground slam with a weapon is almost the same. Compared to a ground slam from a Jat Kittag this is useless.

 

3. Tornado makes enemies difficult to hit. Amusing though it is.

 

4. There is no point in giving her very high shields and health because she has no armour. She, by that reason dies in seconds.

 

5. I'm sorry bit who on earth designed the alternate helmets? They are terrible.

 

Along with Rhino and Volt, she really could do with a re-work. In my opinion, with the default helmet, she is one of the coolest looking frames. She looks like Artorias from Dark Souls. :D

[Hallucinated]

3. Tornado makes enemies difficult to hit. Amusing though it is.

 

4. There is no point in giving her very high shields and health because she has no armour. She, by that reason dies in seconds.

 

1. Tornado is basically an "oh S#&amp;&#036;!" button. That's it. You only, ONLY ever press it in a serious "Oh S#&amp;&#036;!" situation. In that function it performs beautifully, provided you have power range worth speaking of (i.e. knock off the Narrow Minded).

 

2. What the hell does having high shields have to do with armour? And by the time you get to the point when "she dies in seconds" any other frame does too. Out of 36 frames (including Primes as separate) she's ranked a respectable 9th in base EHP, 6th if Atlas, Frost, Ash P and Valkyr are counted joint 2nd with the same EHP. Add in Turbulence and a natural Rejuvenation aura slot and I'd say she's tankier than Ash P, Atlas and the Rhinos.

 

More to the point, having high shields and health are precisely the things that protect you against Bombard splash damage, which is what everybody seems to be whining about and the only thing that will ever reliably get through Turbulence.

 

In response to the OP, I'd say people hate her because:

 

1. She doesn't fly

 

2. She plays and builds counterintuitively to both her concept (air/bird) and apparent mechanics (duration as most important stat, mobility)

 

If you don't actually work out how to actually effectively build and play her, she'll seem weak and useless.

[kleerr2]

Turbulence build vs Corpus = Invulnerable... IN A RADIUS! Theres also the tonkor trick... Her #2 is in dire need of remaking. The tornadoes ain't too bad, but they should suck up enemies from atleast twice if not more the current distance, since using #4 for anything other that CC and Status is pointless.

[Godovwar1]

Well zepher is one of the WF's that I use the least. her power 2 is REALLY good though. It makes her almost invinvible.  her Jump power is what allowed me to pass test 11 which is the speed run. To improve her I would make her tornado power more like vaubans vortex wich it is stagnent but sucks them all in and keeps them there.

[traybong111]

Tornadoes prioritize Corrosive and Viral so they can still deal really good damage if you know your elemental resistances. While I think Tornadoes provide really good CC there are some changes or improvements I wish for, like Natural Talent affecting their speed (and a slight speed boost to them in general) and a minor Turbulence effect because bullets shouldn't passing through raging tornadoes that easily. 

 

I also agree that her 2 could use some more utility. One idea I have: current Dive Bomb is fused to Tail Wind so pressing 1 again or in the air would do the current Dive Bomb (with more noticeable range and speed). 2 is changed to the current Augment, Dive Bomb Vortex, and its Augment is changed to Pressure Trap: the impact AoE of Dive Bomb Vortex is now afflicted with erratic pressure that decreases speed and accuracy of enemies (starting with the ones dragged into the vortex). AoE lingers for 6 seconds base. 

Edited November 27, 2015 by traybong111

[-FuMo-]

useless? sure mates...

 

[owendawgx]

Her first two abilities are pretty disappointing.

 

Turbulence and Tornado are pretty great though.

 

But her design is absolutely terrible, by far the most unattractive frame in the game, imo.

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

If a frame doesn't have an ultimate ability that doesn't complete an exterminate mission for you, it means it's terrible according to this community.

The only real way to do anything is to get a frame and form your own opinion based on if you can adapt the frame to your playstyle, or adapt your playstyle to the frame.

Shes a great frame...her 1 and 2 need some wrk...but her three is superb...especially in defense missions. Her 4 is epic imo...though many would disagree with me...i have the aug that makes 8 tornadoes summon and pretty much wipes out just about anything in my path, my allies path, or any other path for that matter. Many people say the tornadoes are too slow...but i like the fact that they move slowly...kinda like body guards...and being able to change their element at will, is also a nice touch. Plus shes incredibly mobile and tanky as all get out.