So, my Equinox finished today, and I've done my usual 'get to ten to get full kit then experiment a little' and while I love all the concepts and most of this frames abilities, I'm completely baffled as to how to giver her 2 identities, any identity.
So, let's cover what I see;
100 base Shields, Health, and armor. 150 base energy, and 1.15 Sprint Speed... so stat wise she's a slightly faster Ember, a solid caster with no innate defensive Biase. (Compared to Saryn's Health and Armor or Mags Shields.)
A 'D' and 'V' for innate Polarities, with '-' for Aura.
The D strikes me as odd, because she doesn't have inherently high stats for any defense stat, not that Vigor or Redirection are bad, a couple corrupted mods are D though, potential for extreme caster shinanigans out the door.
The V is pretty good upfront, a lot of good general ability enhancements. By that I mean 'Intensify is never a bad thing.'
Dash Aura? Sounds like Energy Siphon for my caster!
... okay so out the door we're looking good for a general caster build. What's our actual Tools?
Metamorphisis: Swaps forms, going into 'Tanky' Night form gives you Shields and Armor, and 'Aggressive' Day Form gives you Weapon Damage and Speed, bonuses decay over time. Fairly standard 25 energy base cost, duration is durationable, and everything scales on power. Let's you get a little aggressive or defensive as needed. This alone is a great power for any situation.
Rest: Hard CC that you can knock someone out of. CC is always great, always. Finishers are nice, a great general utility skill for Night's 1.
Rage: Okay now this is getting weird, buff your enemies speed, and they take more damage. A little give, a little take, kinda risky... sounds great for low levels, but it distinctly increases damage taken, rather than reducing armor like what Frost or Saryn ults can... which means it's bonuses probably fall off hard in later content. Still, Speed is far from the worst boon to give an enemy in exchange for letting them get hit harder. Solid 1 skill for Day's murder spree nature.
Pacify: 10 energy cast, and it has a sustained drain per enemy in an aura around you. Both affected by efficiency. This sustained Aura causes you to lower the damage of enemies you approach, the closer you approach, the less damage they deal... Now this is getting weird, as this skill would require you to get right up in the crossfire to get the most out of it, when we're not really inheritance durable, and have been a more ranged utility caster up until now... This is a Night power, which means you can come into this with some Frost like stats up front, but it's still no snowglobe, and your gonna be losing the Morph bonuses eventually.
Provoke: Days aura let's her give allies (and herself) more Power Strength, and it's sustain effect only comes into play when abilities are cast? This is a fantastic utility skill for helping out your team, as you stand back and hug that Ash, Saryn, Frost, Excal... doesn't matter, you just make their stuff better, for a marginal chink to your own energy. Fantastic Skill overall, though it's benifits are a litlte light and hard to see, it also costs minimal for you to maintain yourself.
Mend: ... easily the weirdest skill in this entire kit. You put up an aura for 50 energy, and it costs 3.5 per second to maintain... this aura 'catches' the life force of dying enemies, and when you turn it off, you heal nearby allies, and yourself, for the amount of caught HP, to health, then shields. So you need to be in the middle of the enemies for awhile, then allies. But not only do you need to be in the middle of enemies, they need to actively die around you, as a Day skill... entirely based around recovery. Not only that, this healing skill needs to be 'charged'? When generally, if you need healing... you need it NOW? I don't really get how you're supposed to use this skill at all. Day does have a descent kit for mixing it up though, Pacify and the Morph bonuses making you fairly durable, while Rest can let you sleep a handful of dangerous targets if things get too hairy... this doesn't let you, really kill things to prime it though, nor does it really help you save an ally in danger barring being a hardy target while you rez someone. It all boils down to 2 abilities trying to do the work of Ironskin.
Maim: Okay, this skill makes a little more sense than mend to me. Same energy cost, casting it causes you to let out a weak pulse of damage, then enemies around dying charges it (like Mend), but when you release it, instead of healing allies, this pulse hurts enemies! Great! ... except, oh wait, wouldn't they all be dead already from you trying to get it charged in the first place? and charging it from one pile, then waiting for the next is, extremely energy dependent... On top of both of these, you can't charge one of these skills, cast meta, then spend the charge on the opposite skill as needed. Also, This is the only Day power that rewards getting in the thick of things, Rage almost wants you keeping as far as possible, Provoke has you hugging your teammates, and your Morphboost is all gunplay and speed, which can let you do maybe some 'run-through's with a shotgun, but getting overly invested will just get you shredded with your inherently sub-par durability stats.
But okee, before I get down to the last question of help: Let's take all of these abilities, and look at what type of builds you might want. Up front, almost everything seems to use, everything. Morph and R&R both directly benefit from Duration, and M&M has a wacky 'half efficiency' thing going on with it. of course, everything is affected by Efficiency as well. (note: Efficiency is better for M&M Efficiency than duration.). Everything is also affected by Power Strength fairly substantially, and the only thing not affected by range is Morph.
Morph is a core skill to this frame, so we'd want to avoid hurting things that affect it too much... the swap effects are extremely potent, and you probably want them to last as long as possible, meaning a max Energy Effiency doesn't really work... and while Range doesn't affect Morph, it does influence the rest of her kit, and your gonna want, whichever skill you do choose, to be as large as possible, Power strength is inherently a must because there's very little not influenced by it in the entire set... which, only leaves Efficiency as the stat we can sacrafice? Between the two sustainables, and the need to cast morph constantly, that's not really an option either... meaning you go for a balance build then with just the basics?
How do you even make the most of her abilities as is? With a kit that can't make up it's mind on whether it wants you In or Out, and an ult that's entirely dependant on the fight already being over... what does Equanox do, besides, hug people with Provoke and be moderatly durable with some CC like a sort of, discount Rhino?
Question
Zsword
So, my Equinox finished today, and I've done my usual 'get to ten to get full kit then experiment a little' and while I love all the concepts and most of this frames abilities, I'm completely baffled as to how to giver her 2 identities, any identity.
So, let's cover what I see;
100 base Shields, Health, and armor. 150 base energy, and 1.15 Sprint Speed... so stat wise she's a slightly faster Ember, a solid caster with no innate defensive Biase. (Compared to Saryn's Health and Armor or Mags Shields.)
A 'D' and 'V' for innate Polarities, with '-' for Aura.
The D strikes me as odd, because she doesn't have inherently high stats for any defense stat, not that Vigor or Redirection are bad, a couple corrupted mods are D though, potential for extreme caster shinanigans out the door.
The V is pretty good upfront, a lot of good general ability enhancements. By that I mean 'Intensify is never a bad thing.'
Dash Aura? Sounds like Energy Siphon for my caster!
... okay so out the door we're looking good for a general caster build. What's our actual Tools?
Metamorphisis: Swaps forms, going into 'Tanky' Night form gives you Shields and Armor, and 'Aggressive' Day Form gives you Weapon Damage and Speed, bonuses decay over time. Fairly standard 25 energy base cost, duration is durationable, and everything scales on power. Let's you get a little aggressive or defensive as needed. This alone is a great power for any situation.
Rest: Hard CC that you can knock someone out of. CC is always great, always. Finishers are nice, a great general utility skill for Night's 1.
Rage: Okay now this is getting weird, buff your enemies speed, and they take more damage. A little give, a little take, kinda risky... sounds great for low levels, but it distinctly increases damage taken, rather than reducing armor like what Frost or Saryn ults can... which means it's bonuses probably fall off hard in later content. Still, Speed is far from the worst boon to give an enemy in exchange for letting them get hit harder. Solid 1 skill for Day's murder spree nature.
Pacify: 10 energy cast, and it has a sustained drain per enemy in an aura around you. Both affected by efficiency. This sustained Aura causes you to lower the damage of enemies you approach, the closer you approach, the less damage they deal... Now this is getting weird, as this skill would require you to get right up in the crossfire to get the most out of it, when we're not really inheritance durable, and have been a more ranged utility caster up until now... This is a Night power, which means you can come into this with some Frost like stats up front, but it's still no snowglobe, and your gonna be losing the Morph bonuses eventually.
Provoke: Days aura let's her give allies (and herself) more Power Strength, and it's sustain effect only comes into play when abilities are cast? This is a fantastic utility skill for helping out your team, as you stand back and hug that Ash, Saryn, Frost, Excal... doesn't matter, you just make their stuff better, for a marginal chink to your own energy. Fantastic Skill overall, though it's benifits are a litlte light and hard to see, it also costs minimal for you to maintain yourself.
Mend: ... easily the weirdest skill in this entire kit. You put up an aura for 50 energy, and it costs 3.5 per second to maintain... this aura 'catches' the life force of dying enemies, and when you turn it off, you heal nearby allies, and yourself, for the amount of caught HP, to health, then shields. So you need to be in the middle of the enemies for awhile, then allies. But not only do you need to be in the middle of enemies, they need to actively die around you, as a Day skill... entirely based around recovery. Not only that, this healing skill needs to be 'charged'? When generally, if you need healing... you need it NOW? I don't really get how you're supposed to use this skill at all. Day does have a descent kit for mixing it up though, Pacify and the Morph bonuses making you fairly durable, while Rest can let you sleep a handful of dangerous targets if things get too hairy... this doesn't let you, really kill things to prime it though, nor does it really help you save an ally in danger barring being a hardy target while you rez someone. It all boils down to 2 abilities trying to do the work of Ironskin.
Maim: Okay, this skill makes a little more sense than mend to me. Same energy cost, casting it causes you to let out a weak pulse of damage, then enemies around dying charges it (like Mend), but when you release it, instead of healing allies, this pulse hurts enemies! Great! ... except, oh wait, wouldn't they all be dead already from you trying to get it charged in the first place? and charging it from one pile, then waiting for the next is, extremely energy dependent... On top of both of these, you can't charge one of these skills, cast meta, then spend the charge on the opposite skill as needed. Also, This is the only Day power that rewards getting in the thick of things, Rage almost wants you keeping as far as possible, Provoke has you hugging your teammates, and your Morphboost is all gunplay and speed, which can let you do maybe some 'run-through's with a shotgun, but getting overly invested will just get you shredded with your inherently sub-par durability stats.
But okee, before I get down to the last question of help: Let's take all of these abilities, and look at what type of builds you might want. Up front, almost everything seems to use, everything. Morph and R&R both directly benefit from Duration, and M&M has a wacky 'half efficiency' thing going on with it. of course, everything is affected by Efficiency as well. (note: Efficiency is better for M&M Efficiency than duration.). Everything is also affected by Power Strength fairly substantially, and the only thing not affected by range is Morph.
Morph is a core skill to this frame, so we'd want to avoid hurting things that affect it too much... the swap effects are extremely potent, and you probably want them to last as long as possible, meaning a max Energy Effiency doesn't really work... and while Range doesn't affect Morph, it does influence the rest of her kit, and your gonna want, whichever skill you do choose, to be as large as possible, Power strength is inherently a must because there's very little not influenced by it in the entire set... which, only leaves Efficiency as the stat we can sacrafice? Between the two sustainables, and the need to cast morph constantly, that's not really an option either... meaning you go for a balance build then with just the basics?
How do you even make the most of her abilities as is? With a kit that can't make up it's mind on whether it wants you In or Out, and an ult that's entirely dependant on the fight already being over... what does Equanox do, besides, hug people with Provoke and be moderatly durable with some CC like a sort of, discount Rhino?
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