How to Balance Shadow Step But Keep it Interesting

[-.Skye.-]

8 minutes ago, p3z1 said:

Sure, let's nerf shadow step. But first, get these done:

- rebalance bursas (again), because low level and/or new players are getting screwed by these guys

- rebalance scaling in general, because enemy scaling is broken

- rebalance weapons and mods, since only a few weapons are worthy of eating forma

- rebalance procs, because some are more useless than others

- rebalance focus, because naramon and zenurik (to some extent, madurai) are the only useful focus trees IMO

- rebalance sorties, because rewards =/= difficulty

- make snipers feel good in warframe, because bows are better most of the time (emphasizing that, because snipers have their own sues, albeit minimal)

- rebalance some frames, because some are less useful (zephyr) compared to others (loki)

When those are done, return to this thread.

tl;dr (as necessary), balance the game first before nerfing band-aids (yes, I called shadow step a band-aid)

Actually, OP's suggestion also looks like an overpowered band-aid of another type, yet more fair than what Shadow Step currently is.

Edited March 8, 2016 by -.Skye.-

[DJ_Vauban]

33 minutes ago, AKKILLA said:

GOD BLESS YOU DJ VAUBAN 

I may need you to attend My sons 4th Bday please bring Your 1s and 2s and bring Your Bounce Augment please BOUNCE HOUSE lol jk

Its always Shadow Step. Why Shadow Step? Are ppl mad when they dont have stuff? You want a Naramon Lens? Ill gift you some OP 

lol...

Anyway, I checked the Unairu tree so that I am not completely talking out of my &#! here, basically the Issue that Unairu has, or at least to me personally, is that all the passives only have an effect,if at all, on a frame with a lot of armor which already narrows the list of viable frames for this tree down to 4-5 frames.

Now let's look at some of said passives:

Stone Shape
Basilisk Flare grants 5% / 7% / 10% / 12% bonus armor for the duration of the mission.

let's do some math here, Valkyr is the frame with the highest armor rating with 600, that means that if the passive only grants 12% bonus armor to the base amount of armor, Valkyr sits at 672, which is barely an increase. Now if we do the same with a frame with only 15 armor, we basically get 16,8, see what I am getting at? the bonus is basically non existend. Not to mention that enemy scaling is broken which turns those 12% into nothingness as well. Let's move on

Medusa Skin
Basilisk Flare grants a 20% / 25% / 35% / 50% chance to petrify enemies for 10 seconds when struck with melee weapons for the duration of the mission.

Basically, this is the Unairu version of shadow step, except that it's not. It petrifies enemies if YOU are struck with a melee weapon and only for a 50% chance at that, tell me, when was the last time you were hit by a powerfist or any other melee unit that isn't infested?

The rest of the passives are basically damage increases for Basilisk flare which again, become redundant the higher the enemies are scaled, and armor reduction for enemies, but they are still no shadow step, they still don't seem like they are worth the focus put into them <w<

Edited March 8, 2016 by DJ_Vauban
added another line

[AKKILLA]

15 minutes ago, DJ_Vauban said:

lol...

Anyway, I checked the Unairu tree so that I am not completely talking out of my &amp;#&#33; here, basically the Issue that Unairu has, or at least to me personally, is that all the passives only have an effect,if at all, on a frame with a lot of armor which already narrows the list of viable frames for this tree down to 4-5 frames.

Now let's look at some of said passives:

Stone Shape
Basilisk Flare grants 5% / 7% / 10% / 12% bonus armor for the duration of the mission.

let's do some math here, Valkyr is the frame with the highest armor rating with 600, that means that if the passive only grants 12% bonus armor to the base amount of armor, Valkyr sits at 672, which is barely an increase. Now if we do the same with a frame with only 15 armor, we basically get 16,8, see what I am getting at? the bonus is basically non existend. Not to mention that enemy scaling is broken which turns those 12% into nothingness as well. Let's move on

Medusa Skin
Basilisk Flare grants a 20% / 25% / 35% / 50% chance to petrify enemies for 10 seconds when struck with melee weapons for the duration of the mission.

Basically, this is the Unairu version of shadow step, except that it's not. It petrifies enemies if YOU are struck with a melee weapon and only for a 50% chance at that, tell me, when was the last time you were hit by a powerfist or any other melee unit that isn't infested?

The rest of the passives are basically damage increases for Basilisk flare and armor reduction for enemies, but they are still no shadow step, they still don't seem like they are worth the focus put into them <w<

WOW!

Senpai good in Math too.

I suck at math, only counting My money if You owe Me better pay up! xD

You pretty much broke it down and thats why folks want Shadow Step NARFED to Hell!

They hate the fact they spent on the other schools and they completely suck. Focus lenses are cheap if that I will gift You a Free Naramon :)

You max Shadow Step ya damn self, not My problem then on

[ShortCat]

54 minutes ago, phoenix1992 said:

I am sorry but this is not efficient way of thinking. 
Excavation is variation of the defense game - CC will beat 9 out of 10 times being invisibro.
Eterminate - The point is to kill everything, you can usually do that in 5 mins tops. Not worthy to fire up naramon or any focus for that.
Deception - Get in fast, drop it and get out - again really fast run.
Spy - Ninja frames > Naramon when it comes to spy. It is another ordeal to &#036;&amp;*^ around with Loki and skip traps all together.

In non endless missions all Focus abilties fall flat, due to long CD and those missions don't even require anything special and extraordinary. So, how exactly is this an argument against the change?

Now to Excavation and other endless missions. Yes, CC will beat invisibility. However, now you can have those 2 mechanics in one package --> invisible Nova? No problems. Works as well in Defence or Interception. However, I don't recall a Focus power which provides massive CC to complement Frames with enough survivability but lack of control.

[phoenix1992]

1 minute ago, ShortCat said:

In non endless missions all Focus abilties fall flat, due to long CD and those missions don't even require anything special and extraordinary. So, how exactly is this an argument against the change?

Now to Excavation and other endless missions. Yes, CC will beat invisibility. However, now you can have those 2 mechanics in one package --> invisible Nova? No problems. Works as well in Defence or Interception. However, I don't recall a Focus power which provides massive CC to complement Frames with enough survivability but lack of control.

Melee Nova is Bad idea.
Fun idea, but just plain all bad :
"Nova - Slow!"
"Sorry, I am busy having fun!".

Jokes aside, as much as I love to boast, that I do not do premades matches  - in serious defensive type of endless runs, I won't get to see melee action.  I Will be busy with various options of picking my nose, since no matter how much they NERF some things, they tend to ignore the meta teams.

[DJ_Vauban]

4 minutes ago, AKKILLA said:

 

You pretty much broke it down and thats why folks want Shadow Step NARFED to Hell!

They hate the fact they spent on the other schools and they completely suck.

 

Funny thing is, before I switched to Naramon, I was also upset that the time I spend to rank up Unairu was basically for nothing and that people should stop using shadow step or something. But now after playing with two different trees, the solution is obvious, Shadow step doesn't need a nerf, the other trees simply need a buff.

[ShortCat]

3 minutes ago, phoenix1992 said:

Melee Nova is Bad idea.
Fun idea, but just plain all bad :
"Nova - Slow!"
"Sorry, I am busy having fun!".

Jokes aside, as much as I love to boast, that I do not do premades matches  - in serious defensive type of endless runs, I won't get to see melee action.  I Will be busy with various options of picking my nose, since no matter how much they NERF some things, they tend to ignore the meta teams.

What exactly is so bad on Nova with Shadow Step atm?

[phoenix1992]

Just now, ShortCat said:

What exactly is so bad on Nova with Shadow Step atm?

In my case - I am too busy having fun with that. 
This is not good for my team, since when I go melee, I stay melee. And having things blow up all around me in because of molecular prime, makes me less thrilled to go back to babysitting my team.

[ShortCat]

2 minutes ago, phoenix1992 said:

In my case - I am too busy having fun with that. 
This is not good for my team, since when I go melee, I stay melee. And having things blow up all around me in because of molecular prime, makes me less thrilled to go back to babysitting my team.

And I thought at least on this question you would answer with some sane and solid argumantation. Me - 0 World - 999.

[phoenix1992]

Just now, ShortCat said:

And I thought at least on this question you would answer with some sane and solid argumantation. Me - 0 World - 999.

Hurr durr.
It is not bad on the side of effectiveness. 
Is is bad If the team that wants to rely on Nova, is not able to get that. And Melee based builds, tend to work better alone (in my case) + combos and intercepting enemies splits the group even if they intended to stay together. Sure I can hit an Molecular, but it will benefit me, not the team mates that are in a different level of the map. I hope this is sane enough.

[IfritKajiTora]

Shadow step and zenurik energy regen need to go or change mechanics of it.

In zenurik energy regen it should depend on efficiency on your warframe, so for example if we have max ranked it 4 energy per second and we have efficinecy 170% on our warframe it will regenerate for this warframe 4-70% = 1.2 energy per second. It will Avoid ridiculous energy regen for high efficiency warframes, that can SPAM Ultimate every 7 seconds.

Shadow Step should get nerf that it works once per several seconds. Critical hit with melee makes you invisibility for 10 seconds but cooldown of this passive is 30-40 seconds

Edited March 8, 2016 by IfritKajiTora

[IfritKajiTora]

40 minutes ago, Naftal said:

Wow, what a loaded assumption. Just because you like overpowered cheese, doesn't mean everyone else does. If you can't see how unlimited invisibility on any frame isn't OP I don't know what to tell you.

I think they just dont know how to play without it, and they think they are PRO because nobody can't kill them.
In Blade & Soul assassin can be insivible forever, he have 7 abilities for invisibility just need to use it at right moment which isnt that hard if you play some time and you can be invisible forever, mobs dont even do anything about your attacks in invisible state, which is boring to kill puppets, game is getting quickly boring. That why NERFS are needed.

[----Fenrir----]

5 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Shadow Step greatly reduces enemy accuracy, and reduces detection range on un-alerted enemies.

 

Both are nearly useless. First of all endless missions like Defense, Survival, and all the rest do not have unaltered enemies. And takes into account that it takes 3 minutes to activate Shadow Step it's only really useful for endless missions.

Reduced accuracy is almost useless as well. Because enemy accuracy scales with level!

[phoenix1992]

1 minute ago, ----Fenrir---- said:

Both are nearly useless. First of all endless missions like Defense, Survival, and all the rest do not have unaltered enemies. And takes into account that it takes 3 minutes to activate Shadow Step it's only really useful for endless missions.

Reduced accuracy is almost useless as well. Because enemy accuracy scales with level!

Like Heavy Gunners, Bombards and infested aim.

PS: Shadow step does not save you from AOE attacks, or infestation. Like at all. You get to die invisible, if this has some merit...

Edited March 8, 2016 by phoenix1992

[Dobermann92]

No. Digital Extremes should make the other schools more interesting. Zenurik is okay, but I find the other 3 weak compared to the naramon and zenurik schools.

[----Fenrir----]

1 hour ago, IfritKajiTora said:

Shadow step and zenurik energy regen need to go or change mechanics of it.

Then you might as well remove the whole Focus system. Because currently those 2 "passives" are pretty much the only thing actually justifying the huge grind that is the focus system. Instant revives have some use us well but the rest is pretty much useless.

[AKKILLA]

3 minutes ago, ----Fenrir---- said:

Both are nearly useless. First of all endless missions like Defense, Survival, and all the rest do not have unaltered enemies. And takes into account that it takes 3 minutes to activate Shadow Step it's only really useful for endless missions.

Reduced accuracy is almost useless as well. Because enemy accuracy scales with level!

True asf I agree all the way

2 minutes ago, phoenix1992 said:

Like Heavy Gunners, Bombards and infested aim.

PS: Shadow step does not save you from AOE attacks, or infestation. Like at all. You get to die invisible, if this has some merit...

Yes, I have Died in Sorties while in Arcane Trickery and I wasnt getting shot at, I believe it was that Nullifier field the corpus Ospreys fire on the ground that One shot me but this provides proof that shadow step isnt OP, it works perfectly as it should. Arcane Trickery not once has been complained about and its a Ash Trophy.

Arcane Trickery might as well be called Arcane Bladestorm cuz with it i can S#&amp;&#036; on Loki invisibility and stay almost Perma Invis with Ash's Smoke Screen+Trickery if You build max duration and efficiency 

[phoenix1992]

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Ghost
http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Stalk

I don't see players wanting to nerf those.
Oh wait, this is because they don't work from moaning, how unfair it is to have those.  Dang, so close.

[-dicht.Amducias-]

6 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Would you care to elaborate on all these builds that supposedly require Shadow Step to function? The way I see it, it is a survival boost to any build (and by that I mean not getting killed, not the gametype.)

Survival is the only game mode where it is OP?

Exterminate - Enemies can't fight back.
Excavation - Enemies can't fight back.
Deception - Enemies can't fight back.
Spy - Enemies can't fight back. 

You see where I'm going with this. Sure, it doesn't really help the player's ability to complete objectives like say, Excavation... but that's when you are only taking Solo players into account. When playing on a team free, impossible-to-cancel, effectively infinite invisibility is obscenely useful in most scenarios. 

The best part is, it can make highly-durable Warframes improved version of Loki without the glass-cannon hitch.

How is that in any way not generally OP? 

Deception, spy and ext are all a joke.. 

In excavation it wont help much because enemies start to one shot the excavators no matter if you are invisible or not, same for defense.. 

Staying invisible and alive the whole time is just as epsik-kun mentioned only really useful in solo surv, otherwise you just spam cc so that it doesnt matter if you are invisible or not

[(PSN)FriendSharkey]

Right after they nerf Eximus and Ancient healer mobs and rotation C's terrible drop chance, where you have to go another forty minutes to get another stupid Nyx System. 

[phoenix1992]

33 minutes ago, (PS4)FriendSharkey said:

Right after they nerf Eximus and Ancient healer mobs and rotation C's terrible drop chance, where you have to go another forty minutes to get another stupid Nyx System. 

Brah,
I know you love to get WF sets... so T4 Surv C rotation... will give you many loki helmets. 

[phoenix1992]

I almost forgot. The builds...
Disclaimer : OP thinks that only critical melee can compete with fire arms. I am here shoving in his face why it this is not the case. Secret: multiply the damage by "n" number of mobs around me in any given time. 
Orthos prime PvE build up to 60 level mobs (it can go further, but it starts to drag) : 
http://goo.gl/SgbL7u 
I was actually surprised, that I can count in the berserker effect. Pleasantly surprised. In a nutshell this is "back you damned heap of mobs". Optimaly the point is to strike fast and strike all together - with "fire rate" of 2.7 per second (this is excluding Strike), and hitting up to 15 mobs (best case) in one combo swipe... Yeah I can deal with triggering critical, status effects and overall survive. What I can't see to input are the arcanes (fury and strike, because I take my melee seriously) and the Steel Charge aura. If someone can do the math - please.
Virtually the same build on Galatine : 
http://goo.gl/xDu0mO
Wow. This sword makes me love it even more.
Add to the fact, that I can also whip out War, but I have event mods and Primed mods on it. You will not enjoy the overkill.

[blaes]

9 hours ago, Naftal said:

Maybe make Shadow Step invisibility clear when you hit something. Right after the hit so you still get stealth multiplier. After hitting something, the invisibility should be disabled for 1-2 seconds and then reapplied if it has any duration left.

This way it does the "shadow step" job. Which allows you to switch locations unseen, but won't make you invisible all the time while killing things.

i had thought about something like that. my version went :

"grants invisibility without time limitation on melee crit. invisibility ends at the start of any offensive action you take".

so basically, you go invisible when you perform a melee crit, and you stay invisible forever as long as you dont take offensive action. any action that can cause damage to an enemy is an offensive action*. the invisibility is dissipated at the start of the animation of said action, and wont go back on until you get another melee crit.

that way, even if you're chaining melee crit, you're not always invisible.

 

* shooting a weapon, using your melee, a power inflicting damage, whatever. EV inflicts damage for instance, so it'd break invisibility, but well of life or blessing wouldn't. casting exalted blade can't inflict damage, so it wouldn't break invisibility, but attacking with exalted blade would. etc.

[phoenix1992]

2 minutes ago, blaes said:

i had thought about something like that. my version went :

"grants invisibility without time limitation on melee crit. invisibility ends at the start of any offensive action you take".

so basically, you go invisible when you perform a melee crit, and you stay invisible forever as long as you dont take offensive action. any action that can cause damage to an enemy is an offensive action*. the invisibility is dissipated at the start of the animation of said action, and wont go back on until you get another melee crit.

that way, even if you're chaining melee crit, you're not always invisible.

 

* shooting a weapon, using your melee, a power inflicting damage, whatever. EV inflicts damage for instance, so it'd break invisibility, but well of life or blessing wouldn't. casting exalted blade can't inflict damage, so it wouldn't break invisibility, but attacking with exalted blade would. etc.

So in a nutshell the same as companions?

[blaes]

i had forgotten about those. basically yes, but without the delay to enter invisibility they suffer. as soon as you get a crit melee hit, you go invisible until the start of your next offensive action.