The proposed Banshee passive is an awful idea

[matto]

Just now, Sixty5 said:

Banshee has a 5x damage amplification ability, I think she can afford to drop a single mod slot and still one shot anything in any mission that you would want to stealth.

Banshee stops 1 shotting things only after you have gone rather deep into endless runs. At this point there is no mission in the game that puts you up against enemies of this level in missions that you can stealth.

 

Banshee needs a full rework rather badly, her kit feels so bland nowadays

I agree, when you see things through Sonar she doesn't really need the slot.

Well, since researchers are working on acoustic cloaking, it's keeping with the times, sort of. Sounds legit to be an inherent trait for her.

What I could imagine is the doppler effect of a supersonic object while running at a normal speed. If Banshee is running, units ahead of hear remains unalerted by sound. Or can hear sound only if not in her sight.

 

[(PSN)robotwars7]

mah, I can se where people are coming from. personally I would have made a passive where any projectiles you fire that miss act as a decoy grenade, and lure the enemy to that location (not alerted, they would just investigate as they do with Ivara's Noise Arrow). this could still happen when an enemy is alerted, by making them think another Tenno is coming from behind. this would confuse the Hek out of enemies, and help keep their back turned towards you, making them far less lethal, and allowing a degree of control using sound-based means, which last I checked is what Banshee is all about.

but as others have said, the prospect of using ANY weapon stealthily could be pretty effective. silence may be somewhat redundant, but hopefully Banshee will be reworked later (not just slapped with an Augment like Oberon was.)

 

[NabiCho]

I agree with the OP. The upcoming passive is redundant with the current kit Banshee has.

 

However, I would like to see Silence changed instead. In open combat, it's main purpose is just the 3 second CC it provides and not much else. If the effect can be changed that it can give her some survivability, something she desperately needs, then I'm up for it.

[hukurokuju5]

13 minutes ago, NabiCho said:

I agree with the OP. The upcoming passive is redundant with the current kit Banshee has.

 

However, I would like to see Silence changed instead. In open combat, it's main purpose is just the 3 second CC it provides and not much else. If the effect can be changed that it can give her some survivability, something she desperately needs, then I'm up for it.

lower your range on silence to  base 100% range. that's probably the problem you're having

[Sixty5]

Just now, hukurokuju5 said:

lower your range on silence to  base 100% range. that's probably the problem you're having

And that makes her other 3 abilities worse.

 

[Nlim]

I agree that the suggested passive sounds pointless. For the few instances one may want silenced weapons her ability already does the job. I would rather see something like the noise modifier of a weapon giving some small buff which varys depending on how loud/silent the weapon is kinda like how chroma gets different benefits through different colours. Would be more thematic and depending on what kind of buffs it wouldn´t clash with her current kit.

On a side note as someone who mains Banshee I strongly disagree about her needing a rework. Banshee is one of the very few frames which is still useful for very high level missions (thanks to sonar) without just removing the majority of the challenge (like bless trin or disarm loki for example) - the charm about her in the first place is that her CC is weak and situational (compared to some other abilities out there). If anything I would rather just see a change to her 4 since I see it as the only cheesy (and boring) ability in her kit.

[Omnimorph]

4 hours ago, Blatantfool said:

 Banshee auto-silencing weapons would be pretty great. That means, as a Banshee player, you can incorporate weapons that aren't typically stealthy into her stealth niche without investing mod points on the weapon itself.

Yeah that's how I see it.  As a non-stealth-playing Banshee, I never use Silence for the weapon silencing aspect of it anyway, always only for the stun.

[BETAOPTICS]

7 hours ago, Blatantfool said:

Right, so, while I 100% follow the logic of desiring Warframe passive's to be biased in favor of enhancing a kit I can't help but drop in and give my own two cents.

 It's be a crying shame if all passives DID specifically work directly with the kit. There is more potential there than just some behind the scenes boost to your skill effectiveness.

 It is natural and ultimately helpful to have passives that focus on further involving your favorite weapons in a Frame's theme.

 Banshee auto-silencing weapons would be pretty great. That means, as a Banshee player, you can incorporate weapons that aren't typically stealthy into her stealth niche without investing mod points on the weapon itself. This is a Warframe presenting you, the player, newer and possibly more effective options for Weapon building when it comes to her ballpark.

 This is awesome. Basically, it is a whole slot and 5 mod points you free up if Banshee is your stealth go-to.

 

 I think of it like this - Banshee's suggested passive doesn't SOUND like it helps her kit. If we were only giving merits based on some specific stat increase you'd be right to say that. What it does is TRY to aid her kit by bringing in a complete freedom to use whatever weapon your heart desires in combination with her skills. For all you know Banshee could turn into a stealth murder machine one of these random patches as DE adds a weapon that typically isn't stealthy to the game. Maybe a new sniper rifle or rocket launcher weapon, for example. She gets to use these weapons quietly with no investment being made.

 

I kind of agree with both of you. Sixty5 has a point that Banshee is currently suffering from other more important issues like the ability to survive, and that her 3rd ability pretty much already does what this suggested passive does, which would make using silence useless unless you specifically use it for team or CC purposes (which is decent, but it does remove the abilities most important component entirely). Not only that but if you like to play thematically like I do, then some of the weapons you are already likely using such as the bow makes the passive entirely redundant. However I do also agree with Blatntfool here in the sense that silenced weapons for any weapon is pretty neat as a concept, if not so functional in practice otherwise. 

This comes back to the question of Banshee herself and her kit, because as a concept I really do like the passive and on the paper I would not mind it, but her kit is already sort of doing that anyway so the question then becomes which alternative is ultimately better and healthier option; is the problem the passive or her kit, but at the very least having both is redundant. What I wonder is if it could be two sided as giving her not only silence, but also another passive that would work if she had silenced weapons, she would gain the sort of distortion in perception of enemies and reduced accuracy (?) that Sixty5 suggested.

I do not believe that leaving it at its suggested state as it was provided in the developer livestream is really a functional one.

Edited May 14, 2016 by BETAOPTICS

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

8 hours ago, Sixty5 said:

Today we learned about a number of proposed Warframe passives, among them Banshee. Now Banshee is a frame that I used to play a lot of, though I have moved away from her in recent times due to her not feeling as good as she used to, but I digress.

Her proposed passive is innate silence on all of her weapons, which on the surface sounds kinda decent, I mean, she is a sound frame, and silence fits into her theme decently. 

However as a passive it doesn't do anything for her kit. Banshee already has a silence on her 3rd ability, along with the ability to either equip a bow (Which works rather well on Banshee) or run a mod like Hush, which you have the option to do so given the damage boost on your 2nd ability.

So what you end up with is a frame that already feels lacklustre getting a redundant passive, and honestly that just feels bad to me.

 

The other sad thing is that there is so much other cool stuff you could do with a sound based passive. 

Personally I'd like her passive have something to do with infrasound disrupting enemies, making them less perceptive and less accurate. That way you incorporate more of the sound theme into her kit as well as making her stealth a little more potent and giving her a bit more survivability, two areas that she currently lacks in.

 

Maybe I am just a salty old Banshee main, but I really hate the idea of Banshee getting stuck with an almost worthless passive, especially when you have stuff like Mesa and Inaros who have passives that work well with their kits, or frames like Mirage whose passives give them something you can't get elsewhere. 

Banshee is advertised as being a stealth frame, the way Oberon is advertised as a paladin, rhino was advertised as a tank (he is a little better now though) and volt was advertised as an alternative to gunplay. Its not that innate silence has anything to do with her kit, it's that it has to do with the theme DE wishes to perpetuate.

[AcceI]

I lol'd at her Passive.  It's w/e nowadays.  I say keep the lulz coming DE.

[BETAOPTICS]

6 hours ago, Omnimorph said:

Yeah that's how I see it.  As a non-stealth-playing Banshee, I never use Silence for the weapon silencing aspect of it anyway, always only for the stun.

Poor argument as it lacks objectivity. Sure, this 1 very specific and narrow playstyle the suggested passive would be good but any and all alternatives would make it useless.

Also the ones who argue for energy economy, that argument is not a very solid argument either because first of all her silence lasts long and costs very little for the duration so it is very easy to keep her Silence going (especially with Zenurik), but also all Warframes suffer from energy economy on the very high endless eximus spam and need to use restores just as much as Banahee would even with this passive. So essentially what this argument is, is based on very small gain on energy economy, one which is barely even visible most of the time. Doesn't quite sell it.

Edited May 14, 2016 by BETAOPTICS

[TARINunit9]

10 hours ago, Sixty5 said:

Banshee already has a silence on her 3rd ability

Problem is, Banshee's Silence doesn't actually silence anything. A more accurate name would be "Deafen", because noises (i.e. gunfire) made inside the Silence field can still be heard by enemies outside the Silence field

Not to mention, Banshee was originally conceived as a stealth frame; this was changed to her current form after the original Silence power turned out to be utterly useless

[Omnimorph]

2 hours ago, BETAOPTICS said:

Poor argument ad it lacks objectivity. Surevon this 1 very specific and narrow playstyle the sugfested passive wouöd be good but any and all alternatives would make it useless.

 

I don't think my playstyle is that unusual.  There are many other people who use Sonar a lot for teams and just use Silence more as a survivability tool that gives you a moving "buffer" of stunned mobs - at least, that's my impression from haunting these forums and getting a sense of how (at least forumgoing) Banshee players use their Banshees.

It's absolutely possible to use Banshee more as a ranged stealth frame, and that's definitely part of her design intention; but from my experience it's a minority taste.  People tend to go either Sonar-focussed or melee-focussed (in which case, again, Silence is used for the stun even more so, as they use a very short Range for it). 

I think with the new augment we'll see more people using Soundquake for damage, but SQ focus will still be relatively less prevalent than Sonar focus.  Sonar is Banshee's "thing" that makes her attractive to have in teams, to those who know what it does.  Her other playstyles (apart from SQ-focussed, but again that's situational as most teams don't really need total lockdown, unless perhaps they're playing at the really high end) tend to be more solo-oriented.

[Me.KayOh]

make it silence the weapons of the entire squad.

 

Banshee's passive - shut everyone up. lol

[BETAOPTICS]

19 minutes ago, Omnimorph said:

I don't think my playstyle is that unusual.  There are many other people who use Sonar a lot for teams and just use Silence more as a survivability tool that gives you a moving "buffer" of stunned mobs - at least, that's my impression from haunting these forums and getting a sense of how (at least forumgoing) Banshee players use their Banshees.

It's absolutely possible to use Banshee more as a ranged stealth frame, and that's definitely part of her design intention; but from my experience it's a minority taste.  People tend to go either Sonar-focussed or melee-focussed (in which case, again, Silence is used for the stun even more so, as they use a very short Range for it). 

I think with the new augment we'll see more people using Soundquake for damage, but SQ focus will still be relatively less prevalent than Sonar focus.  Sonar is Banshee's "thing" that makes her attractive to have in teams, to those who know what it does.  Her other playstyles (apart from SQ-focussed, but again that's situational as most teams don't really need total lockdown, unless perhaps they're playing at the really high end) tend to be more solo-oriented.

I never said anything about popularity, I specifically said that the playstyle is very specific and narrow (read: limited). Sure I do also know that majority of people (myself included) will use it for CC primarily, but I would find it hard to argue that people do not use it at all, and in that case the silence is already present as the ability is used, even if there is a dissonance between what it is meant to be used as, and what it is being used for. And here is the thing, I am not even necessarily suggesting that the passive itself would not be good, but that there should be more to it than that to make it less limited to specific weapon types (non-silenced). In other words give some reason to use weapons that would not gain benefits from silenced traits (bows and few others). Then again I would not mind other passive either.

Edited May 14, 2016 by BETAOPTICS

[Chroia]

11 hours ago, matto said:

I agree that deviating bullets would be something new for her though. But I think it is not as simple to code.

Actually, already exists as the Evasion property.

-----

Yes, at a glance auto-silence seems an obvious choice.

Except that Banshee already has Silence, and absolutely no reason to ever not have it on.

It would be nice if Silence worked as it says, as opposed to being deafness; it's unreliable otherwise. I always run around with a 235% range Banshee, and I inevitably end up with an enemy under Silence shooting and alerting everyone outside it anyway.

[Lakais]

I would like to remind everyone that the devs THEMSELVES said that they are not entirely sure about this passive because she already has an ability that does that and much more: Silence. What they said was just an idea that was tossed around. 

Making your voices heard about the potential of this version of Banshee's passive is great, but lets not all assume that the proposed idea has been set in stone. 

[ArcusVeles]

I am totally fine with that being her passive, if she gets a new ability to replace Silence.  I think it's her clunkiest ability, even if the augment for it is really strong.

Before Ivara came out, I was actually hoping she'd get an ability/augment that would be something like Ivara's Noise Arrow, but that ship has sailed.  If she got something comparable that for stealth then I would be elated.  Innately silenced weapons, super radar and some way to misdirect enemies' attention would be a hell of a combo.  (Sound Quake can go to hell for all I care.)

[Sixty5]

1 hour ago, Lakais said:

I would like to remind everyone that the devs THEMSELVES said that they are not entirely sure about this passive because she already has an ability that does that and much more: Silence. What they said was just an idea that was tossed around. 

Making your voices heard about the potential of this version of Banshee's passive is great, but lets not all assume that the proposed idea has been set in stone. 

There is a reason I titled this topic the way I did. 

I really don't want to see Banshee get stuck with a passive that bad. I mean in theory it is all cool, but then you realise that even without considering anything else, it would only be useful if you are running a stealth mission.

Stealth in this game isn't as awful as it was, but it is still pretty bad. You are never going to stealth anything with a random group, and beyond spy and rescue there is little point to doing so.

Since  noone else seemed to care enough to complain about it, I took it upon myself. 

[IceColdHawk]

4 minutes ago, Sixty5 said:

I really don't want to see Banshee get stuck with a passive that bad. I mean in theory it is all cool, but then you realise that even without considering anything else, it would only be useful if you are running a stealth mission.

Tbh the passive is kinda alright compared to other passives. It's just that it makes silence more or less redundant aside from the very small stun. So that might have been a bad choice for now.

But, know what? She'll definitely get reworked. But not before banshee prime is here which will be the 2nd prime after vauban.

Edited May 14, 2016 by IceColdHawk

[Sixty5]

53 minutes ago, IceColdHawk said:

Tbh the passive is kinda alright compared to other passives. It's just that it makes silence more or less redundant aside from the very small stun. So that might have been a bad choice for now.

But, know what? She'll definitely get reworked. But not before banshee prime is here which will be the 2nd prime after vauban.

Banshee needs a rework pretty badly. None of her abilities really mesh together and she has an awful build path. 

Unfortunately, she is too strong right now to really warrant a full rework, so for now I'd just like to see some nerfs. 

[IceColdHawk]

12 minutes ago, Sixty5 said:

Unfortunately, she is too strong right now to really warrant a full rework, so for now I'd just like to see some nerfs. 

Nerfing banshee? Did you just come out of a disco or are you just doing the usual forum giggle? You can't be serious.

[Sixty5]

19 minutes ago, IceColdHawk said:

Nerfing banshee? Did you just come out of a disco or are you just doing the usual forum giggle? You can't be serious.

No I am fully serious. 

She seems like she is in a good spot because of how powerful her individual abilities are. H

Sonar is the biggest offender. It wasn't too bad before, but with how easy it is to stack power strength and Resonance making it pretty easy to light up half an enemy you are getting an absurd amount of easy damage amplification. 10x damage on one spot that requires aiming is fine, getting the same on an entire enemy lets you just unload a Soma on them. 

Soundquake needs it's damage to be mediocre due to the high range and constant cc it brings. The ability is also fundamentally bad given its low interaction with enemies. 

If you straight up reworked her, you'd get swamped with complaints at how awful it was. If you nerf her now and rework her in 3 months time that doesn't happen 

 

 

[IceColdHawk]

12 minutes ago, Sixty5 said:

No I am fully serious. 

She seems like she is in a good spot because of how powerful her individual abilities are. H

Sonar is the biggest offender. It wasn't too bad before, but with how easy it is to stack power strength and Resonance making it pretty easy to light up half an enemy you are getting an absurd amount of easy damage amplification. 10x damage on one spot that requires aiming is fine, getting the same on an entire enemy lets you just unload a Soma on them. 

Soundquake needs it's damage to be mediocre due to the high range and constant cc it brings. The ability is also fundamentally bad given its low interaction with enemies. 

If you straight up reworked her, you'd get swamped with complaints at how awful it was. If you nerf her now and rework her in 3 months time that doesn't happen 

Don't be one of "those" guys Sixty.

She was (or still is) the least played frame for a reason. If she can easily shred whole maps in whole seconds that easily, more players would play her but that's not the case. She needs the right setup and team members to work best. Soundquake on the other hand is just stupid. I wouldn't mind giving her a complete new 4th. Either you play max range and sacrifice her 3 and deny 60% power str only to instalock whole maps á la mirage or you focus on strength with a bit of range for your 2 and 3 while making the 4 almost useless and never to be used.

I'm not saying she is useless because i've said "least played frame for a reason". In fact, like i said, with the right tools and in the right hands she can be an awesome damage dealer/supporter. She is the perfect example of a glass cannon provided by her extreme squishiness and lack of survivability. That makes her awesome Sixty, not "overpowered".

[Sixty5]

35 minutes ago, IceColdHawk said:

Don't be one of "those" guys Sixty.

She was (or still is) the least played frame for a reason. If she can easily shred whole maps in whole seconds that easily, more players would play her but that's not the case. She needs the right setup and team members to work best. Soundquake on the other hand is just stupid. I wouldn't mind giving her a complete new 4th. Either you play max range and sacrifice her 3 and deny 60% power str only to instalock whole maps á la mirage or you focus on strength with a bit of range for your 2 and 3 while making the 4 almost useless and never to be used.

I'm not saying she is useless because i've said "least played frame for a reason". In fact, like i said, with the right tools and in the right hands she can be an awesome damage dealer/supporter. She is the perfect example of a glass cannon provided by her extreme squishiness and lack of survivability. That makes her awesome Sixty, not "overpowered".

I'm not saying she is overpowered. 

What I am saying is that even though her kit is bland, her playrate is low and her build path awful, she is still too strong to warrant a priority rework. 

Plus if you nerf her first you cut down on the moaning when you do get around to reworking her. 

Make sonar cast in a cone, and increase the energy drain on Soundquake and give her a half decent passive, then we can get a rework.