A Simple Passive That Would Go A Long Way For Volt

[Inmemoratus]

Instead of trying to discuss a full remake I just want to discuss the idea of a passive for Volt. Every new frame and remake gets a passive so this would be a good place to start for Volt since he doesn't have a passive yet.

 

A passive that improves the radius and damage of electric status.

 

This would amp up Volt's crowd control against large packs of enemies, scaling with the number of enemies. This is a unique strength of both Shock and Overload that is largely overlooked due to the fact that electric status is only 50% of the abilities' base damage per enemy in a 5 meter radius. How about 100% of the base damage in a 10 meter radius per enemy?

 

Keep in mind that (unless I've been assuming wrong) the damage of the status doesn't scale off power strength because it uses the base damage of whatever procs it. But this would still be a significant buff to one of the unique aspects of Volt's abilities.

 

Another benefit to this passive would be synergy with weapons that deal electric damage. Who doesn't like synergy?

[YasaiTsume]

I would personally make Volt have higher status chance than other frames, and making Lazor Doors and Magnetic Barriers ineffective against him. 

[Inmemoratus]

I would personally make Volt have higher status chance than other frames, and making Lazor Doors and Magnetic Barriers ineffective against him. 

 

Shock and Overload have a 100% status chance, so a passive that increases his status chance would have no synergy with his abilities except sorta electric shield. It would only have synergy with status based weapons.

 

So it may be neat but it wouldn't benefit his abilities.

[YasaiTsume]

Shock and Overload have a 100% status chance, so a passive that increases his status chance would have no synergy with his abilities except sorta electric shield. It would only have synergy with status based weapons.

 

So it may be neat but it wouldn't benefit his abilities.

Corrosive Built Rifles Proccing like mad :P 

Edited February 14, 2016 by YasaiTsume

[Inmemoratus]

Corrosive Built Rifles Proccing like mad :P 

 

Eh that's rarely useful.

 

Also, the best status weapons don't need any more status chance.

[Archwizard]

A passive that improves the radius and damage of electric status.

 

Another benefit to this passive would be synergy with weapons that deal electric damage. Who doesn't like synergy?

 

The problem with having the status enhancement be his passive is part of the same issue with having Accelerant be an ability: The bonus is too limiting. In a given loadout, if its contribution isn't only presented by his abilities (and as a passive, you can't even fudge it to say it'll affect the team), then it limits him to specific weapons to maximize its usage. Keep in mind, Radiation, Corrosive and Magnetic are all more rewarding in terms of status effects and factional damage bonuses than their component Electrical damage.

While his base kit allows a way to provide Electrical damage to some of his (non-melee, non-explosive) weapons, his Electric Shield will not necessarily guarantee an electrical status on a given weapon attack. Beyond the at-will activation from his abilities for snap CC, there'd be no point to the damage increase at all past mid-level, unless you only ever ran him with an Amprex.

 

It's a small buff, but that's all it is: small. Barely noticeable.

[Inmemoratus]

The problem with having the status enhancement be his passive is part of the same issue with having Accelerant be an ability: The bonus is too limiting. In a given loadout, if its contribution isn't only presented by his abilities (and as a passive, you can't even fudge it to say it'll affect the team), then it limits him to specific weapons to maximize its usage. Keep in mind, Radiation, Corrosive and Magnetic are all more rewarding in terms of status effects and factional damage bonuses than their component Electrical damage.

While his base kit allows a way to provide Electrical damage to some of his (non-melee, non-explosive) weapons, his Electric Shield will not necessarily guarantee an electrical status on a given weapon attack. Beyond the at-will activation from his abilities for snap CC, there'd be no point to the damage increase at all past mid-level, unless you only ever ran him with an Amprex.

 

It's a small buff, but that's all it is: small. Barely noticeable.

 

There is a misconception about "scaling" that you're buying into. The fact that guns have more mods to scale compared to warframe powers which max out at +199% or whatever vs the guns at some insane percentage in the thousands. But at the end of the day there's no actual scaling. We can assume maxed everything and we get some numbers that result from that. Guns do like 5-10k DPS. It doesn't scale from there. It's however much that gun does with 8 mods on it, end of story. Abilities do as much as they do. Scaling is an illusion.

 

 

So about this particular idea. Here's why it's actually not limiting in this case.

 

1) Having an AoE that triggers off each enemy means that the damage scales per enemy rather than scaling off your mods. And this is exactly how Shock and Overload work mechanically due to the fact that they are AoE abilities with a 100% chance to trigger electric status. Each enemy hit causes an AoE that hits nearby enemies. So the damage each enemy takes depends upon how many other enemies they are near. By buffing this property of the abilities (only achievable by buffing the status for Volt) you buff this scaling. This is a tactical form of scaling. It demands that you pick the right situation to cast the ability, which would be when you find a lot of enemies stacked together. In fact, this is a truer form of scaling than anything else because it scales off a variable in gameplay.

 

2) The only gun in the game that significantly benefits from this is Amprex. But it would still be weaker than Synoid Simulor for AoE anyway so whatever. Status damage is taken from the base damage, so this doesn't actually benefit guns very much since they have very low base damage and like 99% or more of the damage comes from mods. And of course, the damage bonus from shield and the crit damage bonus are not taken into account for the electric status damage. In comparison, abilities get very little of their damage from mods, so they benefit many times more from status damage. This passive would have a huge relative benefit for his abilities, but not for guns.

 

 

This would allow his abilities to scale tactically based on quantity of enemies. His abilities already have this scaling but it's weak and by suggesting this passive I am proposing a buff to this scaling.

 

Another way to look at it is that currently there is no lever by which DE can tune the overlapping AoEs, because electric status is always 50% of base in a 5 meter radius. By adding this passive they now have a way to tune the overlapping AoE aspect of his abilities specifically.

Edited February 14, 2016 by Inmemoratus

[(PSN)GR13V4NC3]

I'd like to see Volt (and other frames like him as far as elementals go) have a passive that actually has something to do with his type of power. For Volt, being able to absorb electrical damage and convert it to shields and/or energy. Frost would gain armor from cold environments (even/especially while inside his snow globe), ember gets bonus power strength from fire environments, Saryn gains health from poison procs, etc etc.

 

With the innate, sort of-self damage from the amprex (if it still happens), Volt would stay charged all the time or if a teammate just shot him with it.

Edited February 14, 2016 by (PS4)GR13V4NC3

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

?

No offense but isn't volts status allready affected by his range? I noticed this when i first tried him and aimed for a max duration/melee build. Said to myself that it doesn't matter how far shock travels as i operated in melee range anyways and couldn't stun S#&$ as a result. Shocking speed in contrary has a set vanishing small range to stun singletargets.

Don't get me wrong, i'm in for more range and see great benefits from using electric on weapons but you litteraly get the intendet effect on your abilitys by skilling propperly...

Edited February 14, 2016 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[Inmemoratus]

?

No offense but isn't volts status allready affected by his range? I noticed this when i first tried him and aimed for a max duration/melee build. Said to myself that it doesn't matter how far shock travels as i operated in melee range anyways and couldn't stun S#&$ as a result. Shocking speed in contrary has a set vanishing small range to stun singletargets.

Don't get me wrong, i'm in for more range and see great benefits from using electric on weapons but you litteraly get the intendet effect on your abilitys by skilling propperly...

 

The electric status effect creates a 5 meter radius AoE effect centered on each enemy hit. It damages and stuns enemies in that radius. This radius is not affected by power range.

 

Shock also has a jump range. This is the part affected by power range. It jumps to 6 enemies, each of which then have a small AoE centered on them for 50% of the ability's base damage.

 

I made an image to show how it works.

 

 

Overload works like that too, except not limited to 6 enemies. Every single enemy in the area has a small AoE centered on them for each tick.

 

Edit: Ok, let us compare the above scenario to a different scenario:

 

 

Notice how much more damage each enemy takes. Each AoE they are inside of is 50% of the ability's base damage. Now imagine if those AoEs had twice the radius and 100% damage instead. Excuse the rapidly diminishing graphical quality of my mspaint illustrations...

 

 

Notice how in the same arrangement of enemies, with double the radius ALL of them get hit by each others electric status AoEs, and if the damage is 100% instead of 50%, we're talking about a LOT more damage in this situation. However, in the first situation I showed above with spread out enemies, it barely matters. So this would emphasize the tactical decision points inherent to the mechanics of the skills by rewarding Volt more heavily for using it on dense groups.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Inmemoratus

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

Hm interresting, didn't know it had a radial effect range...and you wanna buff this circle? Count me in, that's actually quite usefull.

And i see where this comes from..overload gets quite the beating lately... medicore damage, medicore effect but ya know, it is CC, the execution isn't bad and he is able to use it in melee range what gives him quite the advantage to begin with. Your idea would be quite the buff for overload. Might just be me but i personally consider the missing synergy between speed and e-shield as his only flaw tho.

I mean yea, he is supposed to be some kinda jack-of-all kinda char but that's just no reason to leave him in this state. I mean, these abilitys are support...but why would you ever activate speed if you're gunning somewhere stationary? Why would you activate his e-shield when using a energy-tank build with melee? I'd implement a stunning wave that opens enemys to finishers on e-shield and a reload (+optional firerate) buff to his speed ability so he gets synergy in both directions.

Edited February 15, 2016 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[Inmemoratus]

Hm interresting, didn't know it had a radial effect range...and you wanna buff this circle? Count me in, that's actually quite usefull.

And i see where this comes from..overload gets quite the beating lately... medicore damage, medicore effect but ya know, it is CC, the execution isn't bad and he is able to use it in melee range what gives him quite the advantage to begin with. Your idea would be quite the buff for overload. Might just be me but i personally consider the missing synergy between speed and e-shield as his only flaw tho.

I mean yea, he is supposed to be some kinda jack-of-all kinda char but that's just no reason to leave him in this state. I mean, these abilitys are support...but why would you ever activate speed if you're gunning somewhere stationary? Why would you activate his e-shield when using a energy-tank build with melee? I'd implement a stunning wave that opens enemys to finishers on e-shield and a reload (+optional firerate) buff to his speed ability so he gets synergy in both directions.

 

Well personally I am ok with the lacking synergy between electric shield and speed. I like how each ability has its own purpose. They are all tools for different situations.

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

Well personally I am ok with the lacking synergy between electric shield and speed. I like how each ability has its own purpose. They are all tools for different situations.

This may be true for you but not for your squad and thers just no need to activate both if you play in a specific way. Like i mentioned, they are both support...a slight motivation to actually play it as such would be appreciated. Synergy would do just this.

Edited February 16, 2016 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[Inmemoratus]

This may be true for you but not for your squad and thers just no need to activate both if you play in a specific way. Like i mentioned, they are both support...a slight motivation to actually play it as such would be appreciated. Synergy would do just this.

 

I could see augments fixing this, like a fire rate augment for Speed. Maybe an augment for Electric Shield that creates a bubble around allies who walk through it that blocks a percentage of damage taken for a few seconds.

[zz_tophat]

How about a built in Energy Drain? Makes it like, a 4th as powerful as the aura and have that effect stack, I mean Energy seems to be his thing after all...

 

Also a 1.15 sprint speed, not as a passive, just as a buff he could use, there is no good reason to keep him so slow.

[Inmemoratus]

How about a built in Energy Drain? Makes it like, a 4th as powerful as the aura and have that effect stack, I mean Energy seems to be his thing after all...

 

Also a 1.15 sprint speed, not as a passive, just as a buff he could use, there is no good reason to keep him so slow.

 

I don't see any use for that considering how easy it is to deal with energy especially given Volt Prime's huge maximum energy stat.

 

But it would be nice to close the gap somewhat between standard Volt and Volt Prime in both armor and energy. Both stats were buffed by unprecedented levels compared to what other primes got. These stats really helped him, so it would be helpful if DE would shore up those stats a bit on standard Volt.

 

Additional sprint speed would be fine I guess but personally I don't see the need for it because Speed is multiplicative with sprint speed mods. I just use Rush on my exilus slot and I'm good.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Inmemoratus

[Inmemoratus]

How about this. Let's take a hypothetical situation and compare the difference between now and what could be, for Overload.

 

The scenario is 10 enemies together within a 10 meter diameter circle. So the furthest distance from any one of them to the other is 10 meters.

 

Right now with the 5 meter, 50% damage electric status, each enemy's status would only reach 5 other enemies, resulting in 250% additional damage to each enemy, assuming they are evenly spread. Overload's base damage totals to 900 so that's 2250 additional damage to each enemy. However...

 

With my suggested passive at 100% damage and 10 meter radius, all 10 enemies would be hit by all 10 of them for a total of 1000% additional damage. 900 * 10 = 9000 additional damage each.