Toggled abilities that drain energy while active need adjustment because of recent change to energy-draining enemies

[(PSN)Knightfyre]

With the recent change that now allows enemy energy-draining abilities to affect warframes that have energy-draining toggled abilities active (i.e. Nyx's Absorb, Excalibur's Exalted Blade, Valkyr's Hysteria, Mesa's Peacemaker, Ember's World-On-Fire, etc), the limitations on how players can replenish that energy while those powers are active need to be lifted.

As it is now, these limitations require a player to deactivate these abilities before they can get energy back in any other way besides picking up energy orbs, but with the recent change that allows enemies to drain energy from players at any time, all the time, this is a double-whammy that is worse than a nullifier bubble.  Players are caught in a catch-22:  either they turn off the abilities so that they can get back the energy that the enemies are stealing, or it will be turned off for them (and in very short order!) after the combined energy drain from the enemy + the drain from the ability itself empties the player's power pool faster than a beer bong at a frat party. 

This tips the scales of balance seriously (and unfairly, IMO) in favor of the enemies, as it essentially renders players unable to use the very powers that they need to get things under control when all hell is breaking loose.

In light of this, players NEED to be able to counter the enemy's newfound ability to steal player's energy without requiring players to stop using these powers in order to do so.  As such, I believe that the restrictions on methods of restoring energy while toggled powers are active need to be abolished immediately.

 

Edited April 14, 2016 by (PS4)Knightfyre
Clarification of wording

[DarcnyssWolfe]

No more perma sword swinging excal or god-mode Valk without actually nerfing them? I like the idea, should stay as is, maybe even have it drain them more over time as they try to ignore it.

[Tsukinoki]

1 hour ago, DarcnyssWolfe said:

No more perma sword swinging excal or god-mode Valk without actually nerfing them? I like the idea, should stay as is, maybe even have it drain them more over time as they try to ignore it.

My only issue with the energy leech enemies and how they can now affect while using a channel ability is that it hits the frames with channel abilities much harder than the ones with simple duration abilities.

For example: If Loki is under the effects of an energy drain eximus all he needs to do is get at most 35 energy (and probably less) and he can go invisible for 33 seconds.
Meanwhile any of the frames with channeled abilities needs to get a crap ton of energy to even think of activating their abilities for anywhere near that long, except that due to the energy leech they just cant and it becomes impossible.

And it gets worse if there is more than one.
There are plenty of cases where a Loki can just drop a single energy restore and immediately hit invisibility and is safe for 33 seconds, even if there are 10+ energy leech eximus units surrounding him at the time.
Meanwhile a frame with channeled abilities (such as Equinox) needs to spam down dozens of them to activate their abilities for even a second or two.

The simple fact is that the energy leech eximus units now affect the channeled frames far harsher than they affect the duration/instant frames.  And I honestly think something needs to change in that regard.
Especially with the stacking of the energy leech auras.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Tsukinoki

[DarcnyssWolfe]

2 hours ago, Tsukinoki said:

My only issue with the energy leech enemies and how they can now affect while using a channel ability is that it hits the frames with channel abilities much harder than the ones with simple duration abilities.

For example: If Loki is under the effects of an energy drain eximus all he needs to do is get at most 35 energy (and probably less) and he can go invisible for 33 seconds.
Meanwhile any of the frames with channeled abilities needs to get a crap ton of energy to even think of activating their abilities for anywhere near that long, except that due to the energy leech they just cant and it becomes impossible.

And it gets worse if there is more than one.
There are plenty of cases where a Loki can just drop a single energy restore and immediately hit invisibility and is safe for 33 seconds, even if there are 10+ energy leech eximus units surrounding him at the time.
Meanwhile a frame with channeled abilities (such as Equinox) needs to spam down dozens of them to activate their abilities for even a second or two.

The simple fact is that the energy leech eximus units now affect the channeled frames far harsher than they affect the duration/instant frames.  And I honestly think something needs to change in that regard.
Especially with the stacking of the energy leech auras.

Equinox is about the only one I'd agree on a change for, since it's half her kit and already has its own energy sustainability penalties. Excal and Valk each have alternatives to assist them and many would agree their channeled abilities should be unsustainable.

As for every other channeling frame, most all I can think of could use a rework themselves.

Edited April 14, 2016 by DarcnyssWolfe

[Burnthesteak87]

Add Focus and Primed Focus another passive effect: "Reducing the energy drain from enemy sources".

Also for the game sake, it would be the right time to give a look at Energy generation, without leaving it all in the hands of RNG, Consumables and Energy Vampire.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Burnthesteak87

[Tsukinoki]

24 minutes ago, DarcnyssWolfe said:

Equinox is about the only one I'd agree on a change for, since it's half her kit and already has its own energy sustainability penalties. Excal and Valk each have alternatives to assist them and many would agree their channeled abilities should be unsustainable.

As for every other channeling frame, most all I can think of could use a rework themselves.

I can think of a fairly simple fix that would fix channeled abilities for all of the frames and bring them in line with the duration frames in terms of being able to use their abilities in tough circumstances (which currently duration frames have a much easier time using their abilities to their fullest under limited energy while toggle abilities are hamstringed by the same conditions):
Add a "minimum active time".  Basically regardless of your energy your abilities will be active for XX seconds unless you toggle it off manually before that duration ends.  Affected by duration of course.

For example: Equinox's mend/maim could have a "minimum active time" of say 10 seconds by default, meaning that even if Equinox has just barely the energy to cast her ultimate it will stay active for at least 10 seconds, even if her energy hits zero  from casting the ability itself.  But the Equinox player can of course just toggle the ability off before those 10 seconds are up.

This would solve two things:
-Balance the effect of energy leech enemies between duration and toggle abilities
-Make the starting cost of toggle abilities worth it.  Otherwise why do those abilities cost any energy to activate at all?  I honestly think that the initial cost to activate the ability should ensure that the ability can stay activate for at least a short period of time.

[Inarticulate]

My personal thoughts:

1. Energy Leech Eximus auras should not stack. The rate that one Energy Leech Eximus can drain your energy is already sufficiently punishing.
2. There should be an obvious visual indicator that your Energy is currently being drained by an Energy Leech Eximus. Perhaps a visual similar to Trinity's Link would suffice. It's rather annoying that the only way I can tell that I have moved far enough away from the Eximus is by constantly staring at my Energy bar in the corner.
3. The minimum duration on toggled abilities mentioned above makes a lot of sense. I'd put the base duration closer to 5-8 seconds. The minimum duration should only affect the ability being deactivated by running out of energy and would not prevent the ability from being dispelled by an enemy (e.g. Stalker, Nullifier) or manually deactivated.
4. Having priority targets is not a bad thing. We just need better indication of their presence.

[(PSN)horridhal]

I would say the rate of the drain needs to be lowered.

The mechanic, itself, though should have always been working the way it is now in my opinion.  Channeled abilities should never have provided immunity to energy drain.

[kajiss1]

with the others i don`t  have much problem because you can kill them, but i think Nyx absorb should not be affected for this tipe of enemy

[Torhque]

7 hours ago, Inarticulate said:

1. Energy Leech Eximus auras should not stack. The rate that one Energy Leech Eximus can drain your energy is already sufficiently punishing.
2. There should be an obvious visual indicator -snip- Perhaps a visual similar to Trinity's Link would suffice. It's rather annoying that the only way I can tell that I have moved far enough away from the Eximus is by constantly staring at my Energy bar in the corner.
3. -snip-
4. Having priority targets is not a bad thing. We just need better indication of their presence.

Totally agree. Very valid points in my opinion.

Now that we can't fight back the energy drain with Auras (or anything that regens energy) it should be a fixed drain amount.

[taiiat]

not seeing a problem in the grand scheme of things.
one Enemy Type, Energy Drain - affects Channeled Abilities more than Duration ones, and Modular Corpus / Nullifiers affect Duration Abilities more than Channeled ones.
turn off your Channeled Ability to save Energy, and deal with the source of the Drain. nothing wrong with that.
Channeled Abilities that have very high drain set themselves up for a problem though, and said Abilities should probably be adjusted so that they don't 'need' a Drain that high to be balanced.

 

as ever ofcourse, Enemies don't telegraph anything they do(except on rare occasions), and that's always a problem. Modular Corpus are pretty interesting Enemies, except they don't telegraph their Aura. Energy Drain doesn't telegraph their Aura.
most Eximus don't telegraph themselves very well really, once a Mission has been running for 15min/15waves, you're already into the 'Rainbow Aura' territory, so you can't really tell what's near you.

10 hours ago, Tsukinoki said:

"minimum active time"

unfortunately with how ridiculously fast paced the game is for it's own good, that would backfire too much. all too often i toggle on a Channeled Ability only to find that oshi- i need to turn it back off, the situation changed in the time it took to cast.

[aerosoul1337]

As for toggle ability...

The only problem for me:

When there are 5 energy orbs nearby, I will drain them all quickly... but only gain 1~2 energy for each orb.

Unless I don't equip my carrier, but I need my carrier so bad.

Edited April 15, 2016 by aerosoul1337