Nezha general Questions

[SatelliteStrike]

So I've taken an interest into nezha for some reason, but there are some questions about him I wanna ask. He is pretty squishy, sometimes even with his "iron skin". Unlike Rhino which isn't affected by status, if I get poisoned or bleed procs I die fast. Also his skills aren't for damage. More for utility. This means you need weapons to do the damage for you. What loadouts pair good with him? (primary, secondary and melee) How can you build him to be a little more durable and let's say reach a T4 survival 40min solo (which any frame should be able to do, but usually I get killed fast by Vor when he appears, so maybe I need a good weapon to kill him faster)?  Also can you take him to a raid? I know there are better (standard) choices for raids to make your life easier, do them fast, but this game should also be fun not just meta everything. If you build him for max range his CC can help right? And final question, I usually like playing zephyr cause she mobile so that's why I interested in nezha. zephyr durable thanks to 3, but for example is Nezha a better raid frame than zephyr? Can zephyr bring anything to a raid? How these 2 compare? (let's be honest they might not be top tier frames, but are top fun frames). So please share your opinions on how to make nezha durable, what weapons and how he stands compared to zephyr.

[(XBOX)Skylancer4]

Unfortunately it sounds like you might have used Rhino "improperly" and gotten used to iron skin as a crutch instead of useful tool. It happens a lot and is easy to do, that is why many people don't like pointing new/newish players to Rhino. They get so used to Iron skin spam and face tanking things that they don't learn the valuable playstyle and lessons of how to survive without it, like most other frames have to.

Saying every frame should be able to hit 40 min is over simplifying the issue. "Crappy" frames don't hit 40 minutes without excellent mods (formas and primes) or being carried by weapons and Naramon focus. Basically it isn't the frame doing the work. I just say this, because you may have to readjust your expectations to be more in line with your current gear set and playstyle/skill.

[Leyers_of_facade]

18 minutes ago, hukurokuju5 said:

 

how do zephyr and nezha compare?

- they are both weak, with some underwhelming skills.

I won't call Zephyr weak, max range turbulence will make sure all non hitscan bullets cannot touch her. Adding agility drift will also increase her survivability.

Tornado is sort of a joke with damage, but in small areas, it still serves as a good cc.

Tailwind is a good ability for mobility

Yes, the remaining ability is kinda useless, however most frames don't have 4 abilities which are useful /strong

9 minutes ago, (XB1)Skylancer4 said:

Unfortunately it sounds like you might have used Rhino "improperly" and gotten used to iron skin as a crutch instead of useful tool. It happens a lot and is easy to do, that is why many people don't like pointing new/newish players to Rhino. They get so used to Iron skin spam and face tanking things that they don't learn the valuable playstyle and lessons of how to survive without it, like most other frames have to.

Saying every frame should be able to hit 40 min is over simplifying the issue. "Crappy" frames don't hit 40 minutes without excellent mods (formas and primes) or being carried by weapons and Naramon focus. Basically it isn't the frame doing the work. I just say this, because you may have to readjust your expectations to be more in line with your current gear set and playstyle/skill.

Yup, I agree, most frames don't face tank in general and are not expected to do so as they are more likely to die if they do it.

However I do sort of disagree with 1 thing. Most if not all frames can hit 40 min in T4 survival, although some are easier than others and in some cases, they are not as suited for solo but more useful in team comps.

 

Edited May 2, 2016 by 14159265358979323846

[gluih]

I personally like playing him with his 1 active as much as possible. You can then run around and CC stuff with it + you don't get hit as much so that's really nice overall.

My Nezha layout is using a Vaykor Hek, staticor and Orthos prime. They work really well when sliding around, which is what you are doing most of the time. For the primary and secondary I just wanted to have something that doesn't require careful aiming. Other shotguns and maybe boltor prime also work well as primaries and sonicor is great as a secondary, but its damage falls off too early imo. For the melee weapon I wanted a lot of range and I use a lot of slide attacks.

The big problem with Nezha is that he is a lot squishier than Rhino and he also can't recast Warding Halo like Rhino who can just remove his Iron Skin whenever he wants (with the Iron Shrapnel augment). Right now there isn't a good way to make Nezha tanky. Maybe just go with quick thinking and try recast Warding Halo as fast as you can. Natural talent also helps him a lot because his animations take so long. Things are a lot better when you keep moving.

Going with a naramon build and spamming his 4 is a really bad way to play him imo. There are other frames that do the same thing a lot better. You also don't need lifestrike on Nezha because he can heal with his 2.

Hopefully he will get his augments soon. They could realyl make him a lot better.

[Hogfather]

I have found that his speed saves him a lot. He is so fast most bullets don't hit him. As for modding I put vitality, all the armor mods and speed drift and then i modded how I like to play him for abilities

[KiloFoxx]

I'll attempt to answer these questions, as I enjoy playing both Nezha and Zephyr myself (though poor Zephyr has been made extremely redundant thanks to move 2.0. I was a bigger fan of the old version. much less hoppy and stupid looking) bear in mind that I am an old player so I may have different experiences with gear/mods simply because I've had time to farm and max the uber-powerful stuff (like Primed Point Blank)

okay so first off on his "faux Iron Skin" personally, I've not seen any functional difference between the two, even playing in Sorties aside from Iron Skin can be cancelled and recast (with an Augment), Iron Skin SEEMS to be a tad more durable, and Warding Halo deals damage during its duration in melee range. TBH I haven't even NOTICED Procs going through my Halo. maybe it's because I tossed Max Redirection and Vitality on basically EVERYONE (Barring Inaros and Valkyr as Redirection is useless on them) so while I don't have "Health for days" I have a respectable buffer until I can top it off again with my Focus ability (I run Vazarin, the heal one), a HP Pad, radiant HP pickups, other warframe abilities, or a Syndicate Augmented weapon's heal burst (Telos/Vaykor only IIRC). so getting downed with Halo active has never been an issue for me. getting downed WHILE activating it however, IS. which is why I tossed Natural Talent on him to speed up his overly-long casting animations (seriously those things take forever)

As for Skills for Damage/Utility, I use them for both actually. yeah I almost never kill something with Blazing Chakram and it's kinda a utility thing, and I don't even TOUCH Firewalker (dat Energy drain is killer) Divine Spears is CRAZY useful and I've gotten a fair number of kills with that ability for something that IS admittedly better suited for utility. Augmented with the Natural Talent cast speed I basically give a stronger version of Rhino Stomp on a slightly smaller area. and the enemies aren't still moving about in annoying slo-mo you otherwise never encounter so they're not annoying to headshot anymore because you're not used to playing the game in slo-mo so you overcompensate for movement. nope, instead they get impaled, they hang there, you cap them. I've found it crazy helpful in almost any situation where there's a bunch of enemies around to go Vlad the Impaler on

Okay, Loadouts. I'll be honest, here's where my veterency (it's a word now) really shows. I use the same 3 weapons for everything. EVERYTHING. unless the game forces me to use something else (Sniper-only Sorties for instance) it's hard/nigh impossible for me to argue with the proven capabilities of my current loadout. while my secondarygets changed out more often, my Primary and Melee basically stay the same. I tend to run the Hek as my Primary. with Primed Point Blank, forma'd a few times, Blaze, the other 3 +90% elemental mods, Accelerated Blast, Augment mod, and Hell's Chamber BASICALLY gives me about 50K damage per shot. I built it up as Radiation/Viral as at the time I was running mostly Void and that was the combo I found was the most effective (Confusion and Half HP procs EVERYWHERE if I didn't 1-shot what I fired at) yeah the limit to 4 shots a clip hurts sometimes, but the reload isn't bad and the sheer damage output is insane.. my Melee weapon I keep it simple, with the Galatine. if I'm feeling fancy I'll go for the Mios or the Desestra. but the Galatine basically serves all my needs. ESPECIALLY with a max'd Primed Reach. once Primed Fury comes to me, it'll be a terrifying weapon indeed. Secondaries I swap out a bit more often, but I mostly run the Telos Akbolto. mostly to give me something with Fire Rate to counterbalance my Hek (for Nullifiers and the like if I don't just rush in and Hek-Blast their face) and because it shreds enemies when I DO get downed. with the Syndicate effect healing me along with my Hek, I can basically keep my HP up for far longer than I should. though the Hek's Stagger effect (which opens for finishers) is more useful than the Akbolto's Corrosive (IIRC) IMO. I tend to bring the Akbolto because it was my favourite Secondary back in Closed Beta when I first played, and I put a TON of work into getting my first set back in the day. it's fun as HELL to pin bodies to walls if you're bored and watch them spazz out (IDK if they patched it, but pin a corpse to a closed door then open it. it's HILARIOUS if it's still in the game) so it's sorta a Nostalgia thing for me to have those by my sides. on the off-chance I don't bring them though, I generally bring my Ember Celia Staticor because. well they're the Staticor. Aoe damages with some damn fine damage number is nothing to laugh at. and it's actually REALLY good in the hands of a Sortie Def target or a Rescue Hostage. finger's crossed for a Syndicate Augment for this delicious weapon

I'd say I basically covered T4 runs in my Nezha in general set, Honestly I never found Vor to be much of a challenge to me simply because about 3 clips MAX of my Hek will turn him to dust. just mark him with G to follow his teleport-spam, and shoot the glow-y middle. Divine Spears if you get surrounded and keep up your Halo. no problem

As for raids. I'm eeeehhhhh on taking most frames to raids. I'm not very versed in them, I find them tedious rather than fun, and it's a CHORE to get a squard ready, able, and willing to run them. I spammed them a few times when I was still hunting the Brakk parts, but I don't run them anymore. Arcanes aren't worth it to me. and honestly, I'd rather bring a Frost(My main frame) to raid than Nezha (even though I'm usually shunted into a Loki role)

I built my Nezha balanced as hell, I don't think I have a single Corrupted mod ON him TBH. (though I do run Primed Continuity. it's not maxed yet. I think... maybe I maxed it and just forgot) but even then with, IIRC  145% Power Range I find the CC from his Spears to be more than adequate for running him. it's no Snow Globe, or Sleep Arrow, or Rest, but it gets the job done and basically means a free HP burst from my Hek to keep me alive which means MORE CC thanks to it's guaranteed Blast proc, which as I said before, staggers and opens them up to finishers. the Duration on it is VERY nice too (IIRC I have almost 40 seconds of them on spears before crashing back into the ground) so it's even good if you're doing thing OTHER than finishing them off while they dangle helplessly.

okay, comparison to Zephyr... Honestly, compared to Warding Halo, Whirlwind is underwhelming. combine that with Zephyr's existing frailty and in a defensive regard she underpreforms comparatively. Divebomb must've been nerfed or something during one of my hiatuses as it used to deal crazy-damage when combined with Heavy Impact, so it's extremely underwhelming now to a point of useless and doesn't give good enough CC to warrant using the Energy. Tailwind used to be THE hands-down best movement skill, but thanks to Move 2.0'd Bullet jump, one can only wonder why it's still a power. it underpreforms and has nearly no utility now (as you can do the same thing for free now. on ANY frame) and the only benefit it gives (a Triple Jump) is kneecapped in usefulness right out of the gate thanks to 70+% of the maps being indoors with low enough ceilings to make it the left side of useless, and the few outdoor maps having such low height limits that they might as well be in high-ceiling indoor areas. you don't even need to go very high (a straight-up bullet jump will do) to cap out Dive Bomb's damage so you can't even argue that. it needs to be reworked into a faster non-cloaked version of Wukong's Cloudwalker ability and give Zephyr the wings she DESERVES before it becomes any use. that then Brings us to Tornado. which gives... decent CC? except that it just throws enemies around doing paltry damage where for the same energy cost you could give the same CC with about 8 or 9 other frames that work better. it's underwhelming at best and makes me go "great, she popped her Tornado AGAIN" more often than not. I love Zephyr, I hate ripping on her like this. but she's in dire need of a rework. ALL THAT BEING SAID. if you were lucky enough to be a part of the Oxium Osprey event (Like I was) OR pick up the Aviator mod (which on the Trade sites is only like, 5 plat tops) and COMBINE it with... I think it's Agility Drift... the one that ALSO gives reduced damage taken while airborne. AND Combine that with Whirlwind and a jumpy playstyle, she actually becomes pretty good at surviving. my suggestion is to bring along an Angstrum (or the other cluster Launcher I forget the name of) and just carpet-bomb below you as you fly over a horde. those two mods do WONDERS to counteract where Whirlwind falls short and even give you a better window to recast. just keep in mind you're sacrificing a Mod slot (and possibly an Exilus slot) to run that combo, so you've gotta determine what you can drop for it. in all though, I can't recommend Zephyr for Raids, and I can only barely recommend her for Sorties unless you REALLY love playing her. it'd be better if you could recast Whirlwind before it expires (same with Loki's Invis IMO) just to eliminate that window where enemies can WRECK YOU. but even so, Nezha far outshines the sky-maiden every day of the week (until her rework. PLEASE DE give her a rework)

 

sorry for the WALL of text, but as I said, these ARE frames I enjoy playing immensely. and while I wish Zephyr were better (as she's reaching Oberon levels of bad thanks mostly to Move 2.0) there ARE ways to play them effectively. I may even make a point to toss my Zephyr into a Sortie sometime. honestly though, you're better off with Nezha than Zephyr until her rework. hope it comes sooner rather than later personally. I'd love to fly around as a proper Zephy once more. she's one of my favourite frames

[SatelliteStrike]

Nezha is interesting for his speed and fun sliding. I like the ideea. It's true that I might relied too much on iron skin and played rhino a bit too facetank, but not necesarily in a wrong way. Just gave me the habbit of when shooting stuff to stay put so I can aim better. On other frames it's true this usually gets me killed fast against stronger stuff. But overall I like agile frames with a bit of survivability. Just need to find decent fast frame, good for solo and team that has at least 1 use to raids and also help me play this game better. Thought maybe nezha is the one. But if he isn't that good dunno. Any other suggestions then? Maybe nova? Or dunno. Name something or tell me more nezha ideeas to make him strong. I also want fun, not just meta and boring same old lineups. 

[KiloFoxx]

5 minutes ago, SatelliteStrike said:

Nezha is interesting for his speed and fun sliding. I like the ideea. It's true that I might relied too much on iron skin and played rhino a bit too facetank, but not necesarily in a wrong way. Just gave me the habbit of when shooting stuff to stay put so I can aim better. On other frames it's true this usually gets me killed fast against stronger stuff. But overall I like agile frames with a bit of survivability. Just need to find decent fast frame, good for solo and team that has at least 1 use to raids and also help me play this game better. Thought maybe nezha is the one. But if he isn't that good dunno. Any other suggestions then? Maybe nova? Or dunno. Name something or tell me more nezha ideeas to make him strong. I also want fun, not just meta and boring same old lineups. 

actually, I mention in my (admittedly very long. it took me a half hour to type up) post that Nezha when built properly is a VERY good frame that I've run sorties with more times than I can recall. while he may pale in comparison to other frames he's by far not a bad frame. though admittedly his sliding takes a little getting used to. I like to imagine I'm playing an "On Ice" rendition of Warframe re-imagined as a violent musical (On Ice)

[jinxeverything]

Nezha is a solo frame and why DE built him like that i don't know, i won't compare him to Rhino because when you do that that frame will die for you, so don't compare them just use them.

What missions are good for him?

1. Capture.
2. Extermination.
3. Interception.
4. Mobile Defense, maybe.
5. Defense, depends on team setup, as in he is not needed to guard the pod but to be a decoy since he is very fast.
6. Survival.
7. Deception.
8. Spy, you can use his second ability to move around the data vaults :P

I don't do Raids since i can't put so much time into it, real life, so no comment :(

I hope Warding Halo can protect others when they are within the ability radius, whenever DE decides to touch him up.

Also this is my build :

Always kill ancients and leech unites before you use Divine Spears, they can take it and shake it :(

Edited May 2, 2016 by Prinny13

[SatelliteStrike]

Ok. I think I get the picture. Nezha can be good and can be used, just not the best. Think I got a good ideea. 

[KiloFoxx]

30 minutes ago, Prinny13 said:

Nezha is a solo frame and why DE built him like that i don't know, i won't compare him to Rhino because when you do that that frame will die for you, so don't compare them just use them.

What missions are good for him?

1. Capture.
2. Extermination.
3. Interception.
4. Mobile Defense, maybe.
5. Defense, depends on team setup, as in he is not needed to guard the pod but to be a decoy since he is very fast.
6. Survival.
7. Deception.
8. Spy, you can use his second ability to move around the data vaults :P

I don't do Raids since i can't put so much time into it, real life, so no comment :(

I hope Warding Halo can protect others when they are within the ability radius, whenever DE decides to touch him up.

Also this is my build :

-snip-

I feel as though I should make a counter-point to this build with my own. This is the Nezha I personally run when I take him with me on my Sortie runs (I normally run the Fire Bullet-jump mod in the Exilus slot, but I need to Forma again as I leveled some of my mods too high to keep it ATM)

[xiaodenden]

Nezha's actually can be quite tanky, but his survivability depends on his mobility even more than Warding Halo.  You shouldn't face tank with him.  Instead you should zip in and out of groups.  I find him more safe than Rhino in the middle of a mob because Warding Halo can hurt and stagger enemies in melee range.  He shouldn't be affected by bleed proc and other status effects when his Warding Halo is on, which is why I take him to radiation hazard condition sorties all the time (that and his Fire Walker removes teammates' status effects).  Your halo probably dropped and you didn't notice and recast immediately, which might explain why you were getting poisoned and bleed procced.  His abilities are good for crowd control, but, you're right that you should rely on your weapons to kill things.  I can use almost any of my weapons when I play Nezha, but I prefer AoE primaries (Synoid Simulor, Ignis, Amprex, etc) and secondaries (Atomos, Sonicor, etc) and melee weapons with long range (Orthos and Atterax for example) because I can run and gun with him.  Again, it's all about being extremely mobile to stay alive.  I always have Warding Halo and Fire Walker on.  Enemies can't hurt you if they're too busy being on fire.  Divine Spear is used for mostly for crowd control especially when teammate goes down in the middle of a huge crowd and I need to go in to revive him.

As for Nezha's build, you should keep everything positive because you'll want to use all his abilities in most missions.  Some people think you can tank his strength, but all his abilities, including base health of Warding Halo, require strength.  I find a Stretch gives enough range for my crowd control need, but you should experiment with various builds to find what you like.  His base health and shield are quite low so I recommend put a well leveled Vitality on him so when your halo drops in the middle of the crowd, you can react fast enough to recast or get out of the crowd.

I don't raid and my play style doesn't mesh with Zephyr so I can't give you a good comparison between her and Nezha.  

[jinxeverything]

3 hours ago, KiloFoxx said:

I feel as though I should make a counter-point to this build with my own.

Counter what bro? our builds are almost the same XD

[(XBOX)Skylancer4]

17 hours ago, 14159265358979323846 said:

I won't call Zephyr weak, max range turbulence will make sure all non hitscan bullets cannot touch her. Adding agility drift will also increase her survivability.

Tornado is sort of a joke with damage, but in small areas, it still serves as a good cc.

Tailwind is a good ability for mobility

Yes, the remaining ability is kinda useless, however most frames don't have 4 abilities which are useful /strong

Yup, I agree, most frames don't face tank in general and are not expected to do so as they are more likely to die if they do it.

However I do sort of disagree with 1 thing. Most if not all frames can hit 40 min in T4 survival, although some are easier than others and in some cases, they are not as suited for solo but more useful in team comps.

 

So, you say you disagree then make a summarized statement of what I said?

The OP stated solo, nothing about group. The only way those frames not suited for solo are hitting 40 minutes are due to heavy investment of max'd mods(often primed)/forma and weapons to carry them. Disagree if you want, but that still remains a fact.

Pretty much any frame should be hitting 40 min in group unless they are there for reasons preventing them hitting that time, or are just really really bad.

[EvilKam]

On 5/2/2016 at 7:30 AM, hukurokuju5 said:

babyjesus save me from this hellish wall of text

lol, upvoted.

[(PSN)Agent_CHAR]

On 5/2/2016 at 4:57 AM, Prinny13 said:

Also this is my build :

Always kill ancients and leech unites before you use Divine Spears, they can take it and shake it :(

 

I really don't like what you are doing with Streamline and Fleeting Expertise there and I think you should examine why you are running both at those ranks.  So I have to assume you want to get close to max efficiency while maintaining as much duration as possible. 

Now consider if you only used a max Fleeting and dropped streamline altogether.  Eff stays at %160 and duration drops to 95% (with maxed p.cont).  Is +30% duration really worth using that mod slot to you?  Put into actual numbers the differences is spears lasting 11.5 seconds (95%) vs 15 seconds (125%).  3.5 seconds isn't a big change for spears and duration isn't a major factor in any of nezha's other powers either.

Consider what else you could put in that mod slot.  Natural Talent is real nice as one example.  Steel Fiber is a nice boost to survivability.  Lots of QoL mods to pick from as well.

Just something to think about.

[jinxeverything]

14 minutes ago, (PS4)Agent_CHAR said:

 

I really don't like what you are doing with Streamline and Fleeting Expertise there and I think you should examine why you are running both at those ranks.  So I have to assume you want to get close to max efficiency while maintaining as much duration as possible. 

Now consider if you only used a max Fleeting and dropped streamline altogether.  Eff stays at %160 and duration drops to 95% (with maxed p.cont).  Is +30% duration really worth using that mod slot to you?  Put into actual numbers the differences is spears lasting 11.5 seconds (95%) vs 15 seconds (125%).  3.5 seconds isn't a big change for spears and duration isn't a major factor in any of nezha's other powers either.

Consider what else you could put in that mod slot.  Natural Talent is real nice as one example.  Steel Fiber is a nice boost to survivability.  Lots of QoL mods to pick from as well.

Just something to think about.

Don't get me wrong bro, but my build served me well so far and i will make change when the mission/ team combo require it but until then this is the build i would like to go to missions with :)

[DeadlyPeanutt]

nezha is a lot more mobile than rhino... with rush/armored agility and his #2 teleport ring, he's very quick.  i find nezha very fun in missions that need mobility and a bit of tankyness. 

His warding halo is not as convenient as rhino's iron skin with the augment, but if you keep an eye on his level, you can do OK.  As long as you keep it up, you can take mid level damage, but any high level damage needs to be avoided by speed and dodging. 

I use nezha for highly mobile missions like cap missions where i want to be in and out, lots of parkour and telport ring.  i can easily solo most cap missions unless they're very high level. 

loadouts depend on the mission, but he's fun with SS and sonicor or staticor.   I run him with V Hek or sobek a lot in cap missions, because i'm not doing crowd control, just taking down the target. 

I also use him for synthesis missions. 

oh, you can use him very successfully as an RJ sub in Draco. 

Edited May 3, 2016 by DeadlyPeanutt

[hukurokuju5]

first off, nezha is a pretty bad frame.  firewalker requires kiting( which is not really a thing in warframe) to be effective,  teleport is weak , shield is weak, spears require you to go into cast animation twice.  basically a bad rhino.  oh and he slides everywhere.

 

what loadouts ?

-  doesnt matter, no synergy with weapons.  

 

build for durability, t4S ?

- vitality + rage. lifestrike on melee . high block % class for damage reduction.  this works on almost any frame's survivability.

- naramon

- spam 4

 

for raids?

- NO

 

better than zephyr?

- CC on spears is better than any cc zephyr has, but turbulence is way better than nezhas shield.  both are kinda bad though

 

zephyr on raid?

- why? for what? .....

 

how do zephyr and nezha compare?

- they are both weak, with some underwhelming skills.

 

 

why is nezha interesting to you?

 

[hukurokuju5]

2 minutes ago, KiloFoxx said:

I'll attempt to answer these questions, as I enjoy playing both Nezha and Zephyr myself (though poor Zephyr has been made extremely redundant thanks to move 2.0. I was a bigger fan of the old version. much less hoppy and stupid looking) bear in mind that I am an old player so I may have different experiences with gear/mods simply because I've had time to farm and max the uber-powerful stuff (like Primed Point Blank)

okay so first off on his "faux Iron Skin" personally, I've not seen any functional difference between the two, even playing in Sorties aside from Iron Skin can be cancelled and recast (with an Augment), Iron Skin SEEMS to be a tad more durable, and Warding Halo deals damage during its duration in melee range. TBH I haven't even NOTICED Procs going through my Halo. maybe it's because I tossed Max Redirection and Vitality on basically EVERYONE (Barring Inaros and Valkyr as Redirection is useless on them) so while I don't have "Health for days" I have a respectable buffer until I can top it off again with my Focus ability (I run Vazarin, the heal one), a HP Pad, radiant HP pickups, other warframe abilities, or a Syndicate Augmented weapon's heal burst (Telos/Vaykor only IIRC). so getting downed with Halo active has never been an issue for me. getting downed WHILE activating it however, IS. which is why I tossed Natural Talent on him to speed up his overly-long casting animations (seriously those things take forever)

As for Skills for Damage/Utility, I use them for both actually. yeah I almost never kill something with Blazing Chakram and it's kinda a utility thing, and I don't even TOUCH Firewalker (dat Energy drain is killer) Divine Spears is CRAZY useful and I've gotten a fair number of kills with that ability for something that IS admittedly better suited for utility. Augmented with the Natural Talent cast speed I basically give a stronger version of Rhino Stomp on a slightly smaller area. and the enemies aren't still moving about in annoying slo-mo you otherwise never encounter so they're not annoying to headshot anymore because you're not used to playing the game in slo-mo so you overcompensate for movement. nope, instead they get impaled, they hang there, you cap them. I've found it crazy helpful in almost any situation where there's a bunch of enemies around to go Vlad the Impaler on

Okay, Loadouts. I'll be honest, here's where my veterency (it's a word now) really shows. I use the same 3 weapons for everything. EVERYTHING. unless the game forces me to use something else (Sniper-only Sorties for instance) it's hard/nigh impossible for me to argue with the proven capabilities of my current loadout. while my secondarygets changed out more often, my Primary and Melee basically stay the same. I tend to run the Hek as my Primary. with Primed Point Blank, forma'd a few times, Blaze, the other 3 +90% elemental mods, Accelerated Blast, Augment mod, and Hell's Chamber BASICALLY gives me about 50K damage per shot. I built it up as Radiation/Viral as at the time I was running mostly Void and that was the combo I found was the most effective (Confusion and Half HP procs EVERYWHERE if I didn't 1-shot what I fired at) yeah the limit to 4 shots a clip hurts sometimes, but the reload isn't bad and the sheer damage output is insane.. my Melee weapon I keep it simple, with the Galatine. if I'm feeling fancy I'll go for the Mios or the Desestra. but the Galatine basically serves all my needs. ESPECIALLY with a max'd Primed Reach. once Primed Fury comes to me, it'll be a terrifying weapon indeed. Secondaries I swap out a bit more often, but I mostly run the Telos Akbolto. mostly to give me something with Fire Rate to counterbalance my Hek (for Nullifiers and the like if I don't just rush in and Hek-Blast their face) and because it shreds enemies when I DO get downed. with the Syndicate effect healing me along with my Hek, I can basically keep my HP up for far longer than I should. though the Hek's Stagger effect (which opens for finishers) is more useful than the Akbolto's Corrosive (IIRC) IMO. I tend to bring the Akbolto because it was my favourite Secondary back in Closed Beta when I first played, and I put a TON of work into getting my first set back in the day. it's fun as HELL to pin bodies to walls if you're bored and watch them spazz out (IDK if they patched it, but pin a corpse to a closed door then open it. it's HILARIOUS if it's still in the game) so it's sorta a Nostalgia thing for me to have those by my sides. on the off-chance I don't bring them though, I generally bring my Ember Celia Staticor because. well they're the Staticor. Aoe damages with some damn fine damage number is nothing to laugh at. and it's actually REALLY good in the hands of a Sortie Def target or a Rescue Hostage. finger's crossed for a Syndicate Augment for this delicious weapon

I'd say I basically covered T4 runs in my Nezha in general set, Honestly I never found Vor to be much of a challenge to me simply because about 3 clips MAX of my Hek will turn him to dust. just mark him with G to follow his teleport-spam, and shoot the glow-y middle. Divine Spears if you get surrounded and keep up your Halo. no problem

As for raids. I'm eeeehhhhh on taking most frames to raids. I'm not very versed in them, I find them tedious rather than fun, and it's a CHORE to get a squard ready, able, and willing to run them. I spammed them a few times when I was still hunting the Brakk parts, but I don't run them anymore. Arcanes aren't worth it to me. and honestly, I'd rather bring a Frost(My main frame) to raid than Nezha (even though I'm usually shunted into a Loki role)

I built my Nezha balanced as hell, I don't think I have a single Corrupted mod ON him TBH. (though I do run Primed Continuity. it's not maxed yet. I think... maybe I maxed it and just forgot) but even then with, IIRC  145% Power Range I find the CC from his Spears to be more than adequate for running him. it's no Snow Globe, or Sleep Arrow, or Rest, but it gets the job done and basically means a free HP burst from my Hek to keep me alive which means MORE CC thanks to it's guaranteed Blast proc, which as I said before, staggers and opens them up to finishers. the Duration on it is VERY nice too (IIRC I have almost 40 seconds of them on spears before crashing back into the ground) so it's even good if you're doing thing OTHER than finishing them off while they dangle helplessly.

okay, comparison to Zephyr... Honestly, compared to Warding Halo, Whirlwind is underwhelming. combine that with Zephyr's existing frailty and in a defensive regard she underpreforms comparatively. Divebomb must've been nerfed or something during one of my hiatuses as it used to deal crazy-damage when combined with Heavy Impact, so it's extremely underwhelming now to a point of useless and doesn't give good enough CC to warrant using the Energy. Tailwind used to be THE hands-down best movement skill, but thanks to Move 2.0'd Bullet jump, one can only wonder why it's still a power. it underpreforms and has nearly no utility now (as you can do the same thing for free now. on ANY frame) and the only benefit it gives (a Triple Jump) is kneecapped in usefulness right out of the gate thanks to 70+% of the maps being indoors with low enough ceilings to make it the left side of useless, and the few outdoor maps having such low height limits that they might as well be in high-ceiling indoor areas. you don't even need to go very high (a straight-up bullet jump will do) to cap out Dive Bomb's damage so you can't even argue that. it needs to be reworked into a faster non-cloaked version of Wukong's Cloudwalker ability and give Zephyr the wings she DESERVES before it becomes any use. that then Brings us to Tornado. which gives... decent CC? except that it just throws enemies around doing paltry damage where for the same energy cost you could give the same CC with about 8 or 9 other frames that work better. it's underwhelming at best and makes me go "great, she popped her Tornado AGAIN" more often than not. I love Zephyr, I hate ripping on her like this. but she's in dire need of a rework. ALL THAT BEING SAID. if you were lucky enough to be a part of the Oxium Osprey event (Like I was) OR pick up the Aviator mod (which on the Trade sites is only like, 5 plat tops) and COMBINE it with... I think it's Agility Drift... the one that ALSO gives reduced damage taken while airborne. AND Combine that with Whirlwind and a jumpy playstyle, she actually becomes pretty good at surviving. my suggestion is to bring along an Angstrum (or the other cluster Launcher I forget the name of) and just carpet-bomb below you as you fly over a horde. those two mods do WONDERS to counteract where Whirlwind falls short and even give you a better window to recast. just keep in mind you're sacrificing a Mod slot (and possibly an Exilus slot) to run that combo, so you've gotta determine what you can drop for it. in all though, I can't recommend Zephyr for Raids, and I can only barely recommend her for Sorties unless you REALLY love playing her. it'd be better if you could recast Whirlwind before it expires (same with Loki's Invis IMO) just to eliminate that window where enemies can WRECK YOU. but even so, Nezha far outshines the sky-maiden every day of the week (until her rework. PLEASE DE give her a rework)

 

sorry for the WALL of text, but as I said, these ARE frames I enjoy playing immensely. and while I wish Zephyr were better (as she's reaching Oberon levels of bad thanks mostly to Move 2.0) there ARE ways to play them effectively. I may even make a point to toss my Zephyr into a Sortie sometime. honestly though, you're better off with Nezha than Zephyr until her rework. hope it comes sooner rather than later personally. I'd love to fly around as a proper Zephy once more. she's one of my favourite frames

babyjesus save me from this hellish wall of text

Edited May 2, 2016 by hukurokuju5