Mesa and Fear to Ash's Future

[SoulHunter2008]

Edit: So with feedback from the posts in the thread i have come up with solutions that fix problems but don't change the overall ability.(this was typed on page 3 i just brought it to the main page)

1. His animations: Outdated, jerky, and overall glitchy as hell. Solution: update to current standard and smooth out the glitches.
2. Attacking: Making targets immune to damage and locking the player in the animation. Solution: easy, change it so targets can take outside damage and be able to toggle the ability off.
3. Chat: you can't in Blade Storm. Solution: make it so you can.
4. Spamming: after Blade Storm finishes it can be cast again giving pseudo-immortality. Solution: Giving Blade Storm a cooldown (he has to recharge his ash clones by killing things)

All of these solve some major problems without changing who he is and what he does. DE can tweak numbers all they want till they feel he is balanced but his ability does not need to change.

 

Original Post:

So I have been an Ash main since i started playing this game 2 years ago and stuck with him through all the bugs and glitches that made him almost unplayable at the start ( blade storm glitches were the best i liked floating and unable to get back down to the ground without my Loki friend switch teleporting me). With all this recent talk and possible confirmation with Blade Storms rework fear sets in as I look to another frame that had such a rework for more "interactive" experience, Mesa.

When Mesa was released she did have some issues as do most frames out the gate but the thing that was super cool that everyone thought was stupid when they heard about it was the "Turret" Peace Maker. Turns out this ability was awesome not only did it do great damage and have set role (i.e. i sit here and kill things that try to come here) it came with its own balance that fact that she could not move...period leaving her an easy target at high levels no matter how much damage she spit out. So time went and the usual  balance passes came around to Mesa but instead of tweaking numbers and that being the end due to public outcry that she was boring and lazy she got this new and in my opinion worse "interactive" Peace Maker that completely ruined any sort of flow she had during Peace Maker. If your not on a target your not firing if you are not careful and move the "focus ring" just off of mobs she STOPS FIRING. Peace Maker was about this "Turret" that revs up with the amount she has shot and while shooting does not slow down (for fear of losing the damage bonus/fire rate) but with this new mechanic the times when she stops are more frequent and she never really gets a chance to open up. Now I'm not saying i have numbers to fully back up what I'm about to say but think to yourself how often do you see a Mesa in your games anymore cause i can say that while there might be one here and there her play rate has definitely dropped I know the amount I played her almost stopped completely.

Now that that is out of the way we can move on to the true matter at hand that is Ash and Blade Storm. While I do understand that some people think it is a stupid broken skill I think that the balance is there and that the ability does exactly what its supposed to. Ash's Blade Storm is a target based AOE'ish damage ability with high finisher damage however the number of targets is fixed he can not under any instances hit more then 18 mobs (or one mob 18 times or till it dies) and during this period he is unable to take any other action. Now your saying well that is the problem but that is the BALANCE the trade-off for the high damage and spam-ability (based on how you mod him) if you choose to Blade Storm you are choosing to say not hit the air container in Survival to not help your team defend the target in Defense you are making the choice to use Blade Storm instead of helping a downed teammate. This is the balance the choice to decide hey now is a good time to Blade Storm over here or wait a few and make sure everything is fine before i commit myself to this amazing animated tribute to the glory of assassination (grated the animations are a little outdated and unstable compared to some of DE's current stuff).

To close on this can of worms i want to say with ults like Exalted Blade, World on Fire, and Tentacle Swarm that have no cap to mobs hit are just as spamable (if not toggled) why the outcry that Blade Storm is boring or broken. Mesa got broken cause people wanted more "interactive" ult lets not let the same mistake happen and ruin what is what makes Ash who he is, an assassin, not some caster that sits back he goes in there and gets his hands dirty before the enemies know what hit them and while this doesn't let the player control him due to the speed he is going from target to target if you make him go slower to give control he will lose that sense of shock and awe that we get in the animation.

Now I would like to call on ALL tenno to join with me in my selfish wish to have Mesa reverted back to how she was(with tweaks to damage of course) and to make sure Ash never share's her fate of an "interactive" ult.

Sorry for the long rant just do not want my favorite Frame to go the way my second favorite went.

SoulHunter2008

Edited March 24, 2016 by SoulHunter2008
from feedback in thread

[CrudShuzKong]

How about no.

You sound like that one person, who really likes playing games, if he can somehow circumvent playing the actual game.

If you like Bladestorm the way it is now, Warframe is not a game you should play, since it appearntly is too much effort to bother with if you can't just hit that one button and take a timeout to go make a coffee.

My advice? Get your sh*t together and play warframe for what the game is about or go back to WoW or wherever you got the idea that Bladestorm is good game design.

Not gonna say that you are totally wrong about mesa's rework though, that one isnt much better than the original (but it is better nonetheless).

Edited March 22, 2016 by CrudShuzKong

[(PSN)FriendSharkey]

As you can see from your first glowing response, nuke frames in general are a dying breed. Until Ash's rework you might want to consider that he might get the Frost like overhaul, instead of the Mesa. I would say to anyone who has one of the last remaining CC nuke frames to take it easy in PUGs with the spamming, hall way hero cliche, and concentrate on getting De to remove the end of recap screen. 

The kill percentage seems a little too much for some and their egos, yet if it was more team oriented then you might see a better reaction to any frame that excelled in crowd control on that mission, rather than being a pariah of kill hogging. 

[NightmareT12]

A lot of people just want this two to have Exalted abilities. I know it comes as a hard decision as it kills a part of uniqueness they offer, but on the other hand they were the very first Warframes to have incorporated weapons in their designs: Hidden Blades and Pistols.

So if we can have Ivara, Excalibur, Wukong and Valkyr I can't truly see, for the love of God, why these two are left at attempting to be some kind of casters when they could go straight to the point.

[VampirePirate]

You should break that wall of text into paragraphs.  Just friendly advice.

 

About Ash?  I'm just waiting to see what DE comes up with.

[CrudShuzKong]

From Steve's tweet, I'm reading that Ash's ultimate wont change too much. It sounds like Ash sends clones to assassinate for him instead of going on a rampage with them. If that is true, then Bladestorm's damage wont get reduced at all, the Ash player just can't go for groceries when casting it, becasue he keeps walking around normally and is vulnerable.

[Khormalys]

As long as they keep the synergy with arcane trickery and combo counter I don't think i'll be too upset. But I hope with the upcoming damage rework damage powers will finally get looked at and balance cc/utility/damage powers so that we can finally get some caster warframe that are an alternative to gunplay.

[S0V3REiGN]

1 hour ago, CrudShuzKong said:

From Steve's tweet, I'm reading that Ash's ultimate wont change too much. It sounds like Ash sends clones to assassinate for him instead of going on a rampage with them. If that is true, then Bladestorm's damage wont get reduced at all, 

This just isn't true at all. "Radial Nukes" and toggle abilities work and are modded differently. For one Blind Rage just doesn't fit in to a toggle ability build due to its massive drain on efficiency. Now you can say "well then don't use Blind Range, ok?" The thing is that you will need 3 mods (transient fortitude, intensify and power drift) just to get equal return in power. That is without taking into account that you still need to slot in duration to maximize efficiency. Where as the current Ash can just forego duration altogether and rely on arcane trickeries.

Now, if they do more to his kit then just patch work the p4w aspect like they did with the aweful peacemaker rework. Like make his ability scale off of melee mods like Excal does then I can say that sure he isn't going to lose much but I am not holding my breath. 

Now I said this on another thread and I will say it here as well; if Bladestorm turns out to be an outright nerf for the sake of appeasing those that demand more interactivity then Ash so going to die a painful death. For better or worse Bladestorm is the key stone in Ash's kit. His other 3 skills are lack luster and his augments make them more manageable but situational at best. Ash doesn't need a Bladestorm rework, ash needs an ash rework.

Edited March 22, 2016 by S0V3REiGN

[CrudShuzKong]

2 minutes ago, S0V3REiGN said:

This just isn't true at all. "Radial Nukes" and toggle abilities work and are modded differently. For one Blind Rage just doesn't fit in to a toggle ability build due to its massive drain on efficiency. Now you can say "well then don't use Blind Range, ok?" The thing is that you will need 3 mods (transient fortitude, intensify and power drift) just to get equal return in power. That is without taking into account that you still need to slot in duration to maximize efficiency. Where as the current Ash can just forego duration altogether and rely on arcane trickeries.

Now, if they do more to his kit then just patch work the p4w aspect like they did with the aweful peacemaker rework. Like make his ability scale off of melee mods like Excal then I can say that sure he isn't going to lose much but I am not holding my breath.

Now I said this on another thread and I will say it here as well; if Bladestorm turns out to be an outright nerf for the sake of appeasing those that demand more interactivity then Ash so going to die a painful death. His other 3 skills are lack luster and his augments make them more manageable but situational at best. Ash doesn't need a Bladestorm rework, ash needs an ash rework.

Well if you have been paying atttention to how DE have been approaching reworks lately you'll notice that from mesa's total disaster onwards they were a lot more careful with balancing the powers to not nerf frames while reworing. Excal turned into one of the beastiest frames out there, Saryn got a lot of potential for her 1 power over her 4 and so on. Even if removing Ash from the assassination party was the only thing they would change it would sstill be a buff overall since now you could use guns while ulting (and guns>all else in warframe).

I am fairly certain that they will change a lot more than just that though as this information is already very much outdated.

[MopUpCrewman]

After Bladestorm rework:

[S0V3REiGN]

23 minutes ago, CrudShuzKong said:

Well if you have been paying atttention to how DE have been approaching reworks lately you'll notice that from mesa's total disaster onwards they were a lot more careful with balancing the powers to not nerf frames while reworing. Excal turned into one of the beastiest frames out there, Saryn got a lot of potential for her 1 power over her 4 and so on. Even if removing Ash from the assassination party was the only thing they would change it would sstill be a buff overall since now you could use guns while ulting (and guns>all else in warframe).

I am fairly certain that they will change a lot more than just that though as this information is already very much outdated.

Sure but for one Excal got reworked before Mesa did so you are not making much of a point. I like the Frost and Saryn rework mainly because they were full frame reworks. Take a look at Saryn for example, if the only thing that would have changed in her kit had been Miasma to how it is right now do you honestly think she would be remotely playable today? Thank god for the spores, that is all I am going to say on that.

Edited March 22, 2016 by S0V3REiGN

[Fast_98]

I personally love using my Ash and I won't mind if they changed blade storm to be more interactive as long as it has aoe.

[SoulHunter2008]

2 hours ago, CrudShuzKong said:

From Steve's tweet, I'm reading that Ash's ultimate wont change too much. It sounds like Ash sends clones to assassinate for him instead of going on a rampage with them. If that is true, then Bladestorm's damage wont get reduced at all, the Ash player just can't go for groceries when casting it, becasue he keeps walking around normally and is vulnerable.

This is exactly what I'm afraid of as it takes away what makes Ash's Blade Storm unique and special in a sea of just press 4 and AOE nuke. You had to click on a target and then you got to do the killing. If Ash just presses 4 and then sends his clones out without him going as well he just becomes another frame that got stamped out of a cookie cutter.

[CrudShuzKong]

1 minute ago, SoulHunter2008 said:

This is exactly what I'm afraid of as it takes away what makes Ash's Blade Storm unique and special in a sea of just press 4 and AOE nuke. You had to click on a target and then you got to do the killing. If Ash just presses 4 and then sends his clones out without him going as well he just becomes another frame that got stamped out of a cookie cutter.

You really do hate playing warframe, do you?
Bladestorm leaves you unable to do anything right now and that sucks balls. a lot.
If not doing anything is a what you enjoy, go watch tv and thats where you are at.
You can still watch your clones rampage through the enemies, but now you can choose from where and if you wanna maybe shred them with your weapon of choice as well. I really dont understand why this is any different apart from it no longer allowing laziness in its most ugly and gameplay unfriendly way.

Also the info about this kind of rework is already outdated, as the discussion progressed.

[SoulHunter2008]

6 hours ago, CrudShuzKong said:

How about no.

You sound like that one person, who really likes playing games, if he can somehow circumvent playing the actual game.

If you like Bladestorm the way it is now, Warframe is not a game you should play, since it appearntly is too much effort to bother with if you can't just hit that one button and take a timeout to go make a coffee.

My advice? Get your sh*t together and play warframe for what the game is about or go back to WoW or wherever you got the idea that Bladestorm is good game design.

Not gonna say that you are totally wrong about mesa's rework though, that one isnt much better than the original (but it is better nonetheless).

One please don't criticize how someone plays the game if you never played with them, two I only used Blade Storm when needed could i spam it if I wanted yes do I no. 

So now we go back to say Hydroid, Inaros, and Ember how are they not the target of these "interactive" reworks because there ability to use one ability and just stand still are worse then Ash has ever been. 

People need to recall that Ash at one point was never picked because he was a supar frame to almost anything else at the time. His ult used to only hit 1 target at a time with him doing the attacking alone and was a much slower ability. Then he got a buff to his current status because people said he was too weak. Now that he is balanced people are now saying he is too strong and boring even though they didn't complain that his ult was boring before. So due to this recent outcry DE stated that they will look at his ult and make it more "interactive" which as stated IS NOT NEEDED. He has a role (high single target damage) and he fills it well.

SoulHunter2008

[Misgenesis]

6 minutes ago, SoulHunter2008 said:

Now that he is balanced

Really? What part of Bladestorm is balanced? One of the reasons Saryn got her rework is because of Miasma nuking everything instantly.

Bladestorm is the exact same but does insane amounts of damage at the cost of little more time spent killing.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Misgenesis

[CrudShuzKong]

16 minutes ago, SoulHunter2008 said:

One please don't criticize how someone plays the game if you never played with them, two I only used Blade Storm when needed could i spam it if I wanted yes do I no. 

So now we go back to say Hydroid, Inaros, and Ember how are they not the target of these "interactive" reworks because there ability to use one ability and just stand still are worse then Ash has ever been. 

People need to recall that Ash at one point was never picked because he was a supar frame to almost anything else at the time. His ult used to only hit 1 target at a time with him doing the attacking alone and was a much slower ability. Then he got a buff to his current status because people said he was too weak. Now that he is balanced people are now saying he is too strong and boring even though they didn't complain that his ult was boring before. So due to this recent outcry DE stated that they will look at his ult and make it more "interactive" which as stated IS NOT NEEDED. He has a role (high single target damage) and he fills it well.

SoulHunter2008

I don't judge you for your playstyle, but for the playstyle of every ash i ever had in my random parties. As long as this ability outshines the rest of his kit in every regard, people will continue spamnming the everliving crap out of it.

Hydroid is a useless frame except for the few people who like abusing his 4 augment, and those people dont use the ridiculoulsy stupid (and uninteractive) 3, so he is less of a problem than Ash.

Inaros and ember are never in a state, where the player cannot do anything at all while being invincible and dealing abnormal amounts of damage (also they dont make enemies invincible while using their skills, which is another major annoyance of Ash).

Edited March 22, 2016 by CrudShuzKong
Typos

[SoulHunter2008]

3 minutes ago, Misgenesis said:

Really? What part of Bladestorm is balanced? One of the reasons Saryn got her rework is because of Miasma nuking everything instantly.

Bladestorm is the exact same but does insane amounts of damage at the cost of little more time spent killing.

The fact that no matter how many mobs surround you you can only attack 18 at any given time. Miasma was changed because it was a tile wide high damage AOE nuke that killed eveything in the tile in one key stroke. Ash has relatively little armor despite having one of the highest health pools so having the breathing room of a few seconds of immunity gives him time to recover shields and get ready for your next action. tl:dr he does NOT hit everything at once and takes much longer to kill things trade-off is higher damage to those targets he does hit.

[SoulHunter2008]

1 minute ago, CrudShuzKong said:

I don't judge you for your playstyle, but for the playstyle of every ash i ever had in my random parties. As long as this ability outshines the rest of his kit in every regard, people will continue spamnming the everliving crap out of it.

Hydroid is a useless frame except for the few people who like abusing his 4 augment, and those people dont use the ridiculoulsy stupid (and uninteractive) 3, so he is less of a problem than Ash.

Inaros and ember are never in a state, where the player cannot do anything at all while being invincible and dealing abnormal amounts of damage (also they dont make enemies invincible while using their skills, which is another major annoyance of Ash).

Have you not played with and Ember pub recently? All I ever see them do is pop WoF and run to the extraction rarely shooting their guns. I have built Inaros and put 4 forma on him and i can say that with his 4's armor bonus i could sit on a draco point and go to the bathroom with out having to worry about death. You are misunderstanding what im trying to say about these frames and abilities its not about the immortality frames its about changing what makes him unique and special and turning him into another one of these click 4 and run to extraction frames.

[CrudShuzKong]

1 minute ago, SoulHunter2008 said:

Have you not played with and Ember pub recently? All I ever see them do is pop WoF and run to the extraction rarely shooting their guns. I have built Inaros and put 4 forma on him and i can say that with his 4's armor bonus i could sit on a draco point and go to the bathroom with out having to worry about death. You are misunderstanding what im trying to say about these frames and abilities its not about the immortality frames its about changing what makes him unique and special and turning him into another one of these click 4 and run to extraction frames.

since i rarely play with other people below level 30 at all, i no longer get bothered with WoF embers as they cant do S#&$ above that.

Inaros can tank anything at pretty high levels too, but it doesnt kill anything if you tank, so standing in interceptions wont win you the game.

[SoulHunter2008]

15 minutes ago, CrudShuzKong said:

I don't judge you for your playstyle

 

7 hours ago, CrudShuzKong said:

How about no.

You sound like that one person, who really likes playing games, if he can somehow circumvent playing the actual game.

If you like Bladestorm the way it is now, Warframe is not a game you should play, since it appearntly is too much effort to bother with if you can't just hit that one button and take a timeout to go make a coffee.

My advice? Get your sh*t together and play warframe for what the game is about or go back to WoW or wherever you got the idea that Bladestorm is good game design.

 

Btw if this is not judging MY play style without even knowing me I don't know what is.....

[CrudShuzKong]

2 minutes ago, SoulHunter2008 said:

 

Btw if this is not judging MY play style without even knowing me I don't know what is.....

It is overacted, cynical Sarcasm mixed with Irony and i did not mean to target this at you but rather at the people who do this, and whom you are enabling with your views.

[SoulHunter2008]

Now hear me out I'm not saying that he could not use tweaks maybe faster animation with less damage. I'm just scared that he will die to the thing that essentially killed Mesa as a played frame.

[CrudShuzKong]

14 minutes ago, SoulHunter2008 said:

Have you not played with and Ember pub recently? All I ever see them do is pop WoF and run to the extraction rarely shooting their guns. I have built Inaros and put 4 forma on him and i can say that with his 4's armor bonus i could sit on a draco point and go to the bathroom with out having to worry about death. You are misunderstanding what im trying to say about these frames and abilities its not about the immortality frames its about changing what makes him unique and special and turning him into another one of these click 4 and run to extraction frames.

I actaully did not play with a single WoF Ember in the last 2 months, because i dont play in open parties under level 30, and above that they dont do any damage anymore, so they dont bother trying it.

Inaros being able to tank everything ever under levle 50 is not a huge problem either, because he doesnt deal any damage while jsut tanking, and you need to use his weapons to get kills.

[CrudShuzKong]

3 minutes ago, SoulHunter2008 said:

Now hear me out I'm not saying that he could not use tweaks maybe faster animation with less damage. I'm just scared that he will die to the thing that essentially killed Mesa as a played frame.

I love Mesa and still play her, I just never use the 4...

DE made some big mistakes with her rework/nerf and I think they are fully aware of it, but it is clearly not a priority for them right now to make her stronger again.