Volt Rework Feedback [Post Update 18.13]

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

41 minutes ago, Cytobel said:

I'm starting to think I should just give up and go play some Infamous 2.  That guy seems to be a high-damage alternative to Volt.

What frustrates me here is that DE gave up on Warframes being the masters of anything.  We're wallpaper paste in suits.  No character, no badass, NO SPACE NINJA INVOLVED.

What am I sick of in Warframe?  Always feeling that many 'Frames are completely interchangable spreadsheets, turning out numbers or changing the way things work with enemy numbers.  I'm also sick of feeling like I can't have a favorite Warframe because that's somehow wrong.

I appreciate the immense difficulty in trying to develop some form of character and power with 'Frames WHILE AT THE SAME TIME catering to those who just really want to be punched in the balls by every game they play.  I'm not arrogant enough to claim I UNDERSTAND how monumental that pain in the &#! is, but I kinda see what DE goes through there.  I just find it sad that we can't have a character that feels super-powered without being overpowered.

Weren't Eximus units supposed to somehow counter aspects of our skills?  Weren't the Grineer developing greater and more twisted weapons of war to fight the threat we represent?  Aren't the Corpus also upgrading their security to counter our capabilities, while maintaining a balance (ish) with the Grineer?  Don't the Infested continually evolve to face new threats and environments?

Shouldn't there be enough potential there to give us real challenge without someone somewhere just deciding that we need to have our abilities rendered less than relevant?

I know I'm jaded, but I call bull on this being a "sucessful rework".  We went round-and-around, stopping back where we started but without much to show for it.  I feel like we lost nearly as much as we gained, and what we gained has more asterisks attached than most legal contracts.  Hell, the last legal form I filled out was FAR more transparent than Volt's abilities.

TL;DR:  Honestly and totally seriously, what do I want?  I'm absolutely certain I want less skill-exclusive builds.  I'm still pretty sure I want a list of potential skills (think multiple choices for your 1,2,and 3 powers [Ults should be ults, and therefor standalone]), I've said time and again I wanted DAMAGE or EFFECTIVENESS, SYNERGY or UTILITY, but what do I really truely want?  I want to have fun.  I suspect DE has forgotten this.

I want fun too.

Why can't we have the Tau system and the Sol system? Warriors from the hell space that take the fight to the enemy.

I feel it's the perfect solution for how to cater to both sides, AND its in the lore.

 

[SylvenStar]

I propose this as a rework. I will also post this in the ideas/concepts thread to try and make sure it gets read by somebody.

 

Spoiler

 

Ability Breakdown:

Each ability has 2 versions: Standard button press, Double button press. 

Base Stat changes:

Health//Shields: Unchanged.
Armor: Unchanged
Mobility: Unchanged, possibly decreased.
Sprint Speed: Unchanged.
Energy: 150 or 175

Passive: Static Charge
Stacks build at half of their current rate (Maybe even a quarter of it) and with the same method as they do currently, and power activation (When double tapped) consumes a number of stacks depending on the power as well as the current number of stacks, which Amps them. Stacks cap at 1000, and powers consume varying amounts of stacks to activate an amplified version. Stacks also passively boost Volt's movement speed, which caps at the 500 mark, and are slowly consumed to significantly boost air glide speed, as well as decrease the falling speed while floating (Think the Static thrusters from Infamous 1 & 2). Stacks also fade over time when in the air in general.

1st Ability: Shock / Discharge

Shock (25 Energy): Shock functions as normal, the end of shock has a 15% chance to trigger an electric proc. Damage is based on range combined with percent of health per link in the chain. If a circle of enemies is possible, it does so without consuming links on the final link to complete the circle. Circle links are included in the link count for damage, with 1% of target health damage per link. Enemies cannot be affected by more than one instance of damage per cast, and recasting does restart the stun timer.

Discharge (50 Energy, 250 Static Charges): A miniature version of the current Discharge (Probably 10 meter radius) Based off of target percent health (Base 2.5% of maximum health per second, 0.5% of maximum health Vs Bosses), health cap (Base 25% of target maximum health, 15% Vs Bosses) is localized to individual targets and not the power as a whole. Health cap also does not end the stun, only the damage. No Tesla coil effect. (Base Duration: 5 seconds)

 

 

2nd Ability: Speed Link / Lightning Form

Speed Link (50 Energy): Speed Link, rather than being a percent based boost to all affected warframes, first amplifies Volt's current speed even further, Then raises all affected warframe's sprint speed to equal that of the highest value. This means a Volt without speed mods and other allies could be boosted to the sprint speed of a Speed Loki Build (Assuming Volt can't accomplish higher speeds via Static Charge, which I haven't bothered calculating). Speed Link also boosts reload speed, weapon swap speed, animation cast speed and recharge time (On warframes that require a recharge time before reactivating abilities, including passives). After a certain distance, Ex. 100 meters or some other large distance) the link with Volt is broken.

Lightning Form (50 Energy 25 Static Charges per second): Transforms Volt into a bolt of electricity, losing access to Electric Shield/Tokamak Barrier, Discharge, weapons, and restricting him to ground and wall travel. In exchange, he gains triple his maximum movement speed, can travel freely along walls and ceilings as if they were floors, applies Speed Link to allies on contact (Based off Sprint speed, not Lightning speed) and can pass through enemies applying electric procs (Without damage) and regaining 10 Stacks of Static Charge. (An enemy can only be affected by this 4 seconds after release from the proc) Triggering Shock while in this form functions as normal, but a second trigger warps Volt to the last enemy in the link.

 

 

3rd Ability: Electric Shield / Tokamak Barrier

Electric Shield (50 Energy) 25-50% increase in size, otherwise unchanged. Keep the 6 shield cap, reactivation while standing within one triggers Riot Shield and refunds 20 energy on the first riot shield activation for that shield. Riot Shield cannot be dropped again until that 20 energy has been expended. No longer triggers explosions on weapons such as the Opticor. Applies Electric Proc on enemy contact when hit with Shock.
Riot Shield (8 Energy Per Second): Dropped the energy per distance value, increased energy per time to compensate. Lightning form destroys the riotshield with a small aoe electric burst. Movement speed and Reload speed is cut to 80% when using primary weapons.

 

Tokamak Barrier (75 Energy, 500 Static Charges): Creates a Torus shaped Barrier with a 20 meter radius and 7 meter width. Reflects all non-friendly projectiles (Except Scorch flamethrowers and Infested toxic clouds) and in addition to the normal damage bonus, improves the range as well as travel speed of projectiles. While in lightning form and when within the Torus, hold 3 (or the other approriate key/button) to zip around the Torus, rapidly building static charges up to the maximum charge, with excess slowly granting the Torus ambient electric damage and energy regen. Rolling through the wall grants Volt the Riot Shield.

I am more than happy to listen to alternatives to Tokamak Barrier. It sounds wonderful, but I also know that it can get annoying as all hell in CQC.

 

 

Ultimate Ability: Quantum Warp / Thunder Dome  (Credit for Quantum Warp goes to the guy who came up with the quantum entanglement warp ability to replace speed in his rework idea, it just meshes here too perfectly in my eyes)

Quantum Warp (75 Energy):  Volt begins moving at 25% speed and cannot sprint while winding up this ability. After charging for 3 seconds, he blinks to the targeted area and leaves behind a clone of himself which deals 50% damage and lasts for 7 seconds, when it explodes with percent-of-health-based electric damage (Likely 15-25%) Retriggering the ability before the clone detonates causes the player to swap control essentially at will. (functionally, Volt and the clone are Quantum Entangled, and at the player's discretion can use one to divebomb a group then swap to the other and remain safe. The Volt that is CPU controlled always deals 50% damage) 

 

Thunder Dome(100 Energy, All Static Charges, minimum of 750): Volt Projects a huge dome of electricity (Base 20 second duration, base 20 meter range +2 meters per enemy within the dome) and overcharges himself while he remains in the dome. Within the dome, Enemies take ambient electric damage based extra stacks consumed (1 damage per second per stack over 750), all electronics, units, and dome boundaries have a chance to zap each other for a chunk of electric damage (150 +0.5 per stack consumed), and amped abilities work without static charges. Additionally, Volt's shield recharge delay is cut to 75%, his speed remains at the maximum as if he kept his Static Charge stacks and all abilities are amplified further within the dome:
Discharge: Enemies gain the tesla coil effect and the health cap is appropriately raised to 35% (25% for bosses).
Lightning Speed: Contact with enemies causes the electric burst that Shock currently does with the Discharge interaction (200 +0.5 per stack consumed for Thunder Dome). New Discharge warps Volt to the targeted area.
Tokamak Barrier: Non-Heavy units that enter the Torus are ragdolled and carried within the torus for the barrier's duration, taking impact damage upon impact with the Torus walls as well as light radiation damage over time. Heavy units take heavy radiation damage over time while within the Torus. Other ragdoll effects are amplified, such as the Riot Shield impact and Mag's Pull.
Quantum Warp: No longer requires the clone to detonate before reactivation. Volt switches controls in the order that the volt pairs were spawned.
Any damage dealt to enemies that does not occur because of volt (Namely ally damage) causes the thunderdome to build energy regen for allies within the dome.

Static Charge is reset to zero upon exiting the dome, which also ends the ability.

Obviously the number values I put in will probably have to be adjusted, but I'm just putting those there so that there is a complete template to work with.
For those of you who don't want to read the whole thing, here's the summary: Volt's passive becomes an amplifier for his current abilites with a slow buildup, meaning spamming amplified versions is impossible. Discharge gets shrunken down and becomes the upgrade to Shock, Speed gets buffed more to be slightly more interactive than "button press = speed boost" and the upgrade is a transformation for volt. Electric shield unchanged, Riot shield gains slightly higher per-time drain in exchange for no per-distance drain. Upgraded version crates a doughnut shaped bubble that's really neat, but harder to get around than snowglobe. That one's subject to change, ideas are welcome. In the void left by Discharge moving to an upgrade slot, Volt gets a teleport + a clone that he can bounce controls between, upgraded version is Thunderdome. Let your imagination run with that one.

As always, critique (brutal even, so long as it's not trash talk) is welcome, if not invited. (Unless it's something to do with the complexity of this, because Equinox is more complicated than this)

[Cytobel]

@SylvenStar:  Interesting concept there.  I like what you did with the entanglement clone, and I can really appreciate how you tried to integrate the reworked passive into everything he does.  That sounds like a solid starting point for a Volt that could be interesting to play.

I disagree with combining both slow and squishy aspects on a 'Frame, because this turns any form of damage mitigation or bonus speed into energy tax to survive and stay mobile.  For that reason I figure Volt needs to move well to begin with, abilities be damned.

As an alternative, I'd say modify base stats as such:

-Health // Shields: unchanged

-Armor:  Bump non-Prime to 65, no Prime change

-Mobility:  As the coolest aspect in Warframe, mobility should never be nerfed IF POSSIBLE.

-Sprint Speed:  I'd push this to 1.1 or 1.2, mainly because Volt and speed go together too well.  This could make a Speed analog ability requre less Strength for a proper build as well, which wouldn't be awful either.

-Energy:  Again, Volt Prime is good, but Volt needs about 225 in my experience.

[SylvenStar]

13 minutes ago, Cytobel said:

@SylvenStar:  Interesting concept there.  I like what you did with the entanglement clone, and I can really appreciate how you tried to integrate the reworked passive into everything he does.  That sounds like a solid starting point for a Volt that could be interesting to play.

I disagree with combining both slow and squishy aspects on a 'Frame, because this turns any form of damage mitigation or bonus speed into energy tax to survive and stay mobile.  For that reason I figure Volt needs to move well to begin with, abilities be damned.

As an alternative, I'd say modify base stats as such:

-Health // Shields: unchanged

-Armor:  Bump non-Prime to 65, no Prime change

-Mobility:  As the coolest aspect in Warframe, mobility should never be nerfed IF POSSIBLE.

-Sprint Speed:  I'd push this to 1.1 or 1.2, mainly because Volt and speed go together too well.  This could make a Speed analog ability requre less Strength for a proper build as well, which wouldn't be awful either.

-Energy:  Again, Volt Prime is good, but Volt needs about 225 in my experience.

As I said, I didn't come up with the Quantum warp idea, somebody else did. I just put in the bit about switching which Volt you control (and hence, the other detonates)
Base Speed I would say starts at 1.0, but can increase to up to 1.5, or maybe even 1.75 at maximum Static Charge stacks. This makes Volt's potential centered around the balancing act of maintaining high Static Charge. 
As for squsihyness, maybe bump up base shields, and keep the capacitence augment attached to ThunderDome. Also, maybe base Thunderdome absorbs damage and restores Volt's shields based on damage dealt upon deactivation, giving Volt Overshield potential without an augment. I don't want to raise Volt's armor too much because as an electric frame, I feel he should be more oriented around shields for defense, though that's my clinginess to themes for you. Maybe 500 for base shields and 35 Armor?
 

[Cytobel]

Well, armor isn't applied to shields, and 65 armor is what Loki sports.  Back when I started Volt had 50 armor, and wasn't a tank by any means.  Add the exponential increase in enemy firepower since and you get why I'm more about "leather" and less about "cloth", if you will.  I'd like enough of a moment after shields go down to maybe throw an Electric Shield, ya know?

 I'm working more with what I know than off of what you were describing for my base numbers, to be honest.  When it comes to abilities with interactions, I need playtesting to determine whether I like something or not.  Character stats are something I feel more confident with, but even so your suggestions could invalidate the whole speed concern.

The only worrying point to mention is that I always feel uncomfortable with adding another resource to a character.  I've seen it work, but I've also seen it fail BADLY.

Still, it seems we'd be building for something other than the traditional Speed build, and for that I'd accept some wonkyness.

[Aquasurge]

1 hour ago, SylvenStar said:

I propose this as a rework. I will also post this in the ideas/concepts thread to try and make sure it gets read by somebody.

 

  Hide contents

 

Ability Breakdown:

Each ability has 2 versions: Standard button press, Double button press. 

Base Stat changes:

Health//Shields: Unchanged.
Armor: Unchanged
Mobility: Unchanged, possibly decreased.
Sprint Speed: Unchanged.
Energy: 150 or 175

Passive: Static Charge
Stacks build at half of their current rate (Maybe even a quarter of it) and with the same method as they do currently, and power activation (When double tapped) consumes a number of stacks depending on the power as well as the current number of stacks, which Amps them. Stacks cap at 1000, and powers consume varying amounts of stacks to activate an amplified version. Stacks also passively boost Volt's movement speed, which caps at the 500 mark, and are slowly consumed to significantly boost air glide speed, as well as decrease the falling speed while floating (Think the Static thrusters from Infamous 1 & 2). Stacks also fade over time when in the air in general.

1st Ability: Shock / Discharge

Shock (25 Energy): Shock functions as normal, the end of shock has a 15% chance to trigger an electric proc. Damage is based on range combined with percent of health per link in the chain. If a circle of enemies is possible, it does so without consuming links on the final link to complete the circle. Circle links are included in the link count for damage, with 1% of target health damage per link. Enemies cannot be affected by more than one instance of damage per cast, and recasting does restart the stun timer.

Discharge (50 Energy, 250 Static Charges): A miniature version of the current Discharge (Probably 10 meter radius) Based off of target percent health (Base 2.5% of maximum health per second, 0.5% of maximum health Vs Bosses), health cap (Base 25% of target maximum health, 15% Vs Bosses) is localized to individual targets and not the power as a whole. Health cap also does not end the stun, only the damage. No Tesla coil effect. (Base Duration: 5 seconds)

 

 

2nd Ability: Speed Link / Lightning Form

Speed Link (50 Energy): Speed Link, rather than being a percent based boost to all affected warframes, first amplifies Volt's current speed even further, Then raises all affected warframe's sprint speed to equal that of the highest value. This means a Volt without speed mods and other allies could be boosted to the sprint speed of a Speed Loki Build (Assuming Volt can't accomplish higher speeds via Static Charge, which I haven't bothered calculating). Speed Link also boosts reload speed, weapon swap speed, animation cast speed and recharge time (On warframes that require a recharge time before reactivating abilities, including passives). After a certain distance, Ex. 100 meters or some other large distance) the link with Volt is broken.

Lightning Form (50 Energy 25 Static Charges per second): Transforms Volt into a bolt of electricity, losing access to Electric Shield/Tokamak Barrier, Discharge, weapons, and restricting him to ground and wall travel. In exchange, he gains triple his maximum movement speed, can travel freely along walls and ceilings as if they were floors, applies Speed Link to allies on contact (Based off Sprint speed, not Lightning speed) and can pass through enemies applying electric procs (Without damage) and regaining 10 Stacks of Static Charge. (An enemy can only be affected by this 4 seconds after release from the proc) Triggering Shock while in this form functions as normal, but a second trigger warps Volt to the last enemy in the link.

 

 

3rd Ability: Electric Shield / Tokamak Barrier

Electric Shield (50 Energy) 25-50% increase in size, otherwise unchanged. Keep the 6 shield cap, reactivation while standing within one triggers Riot Shield and refunds 20 energy on the first riot shield activation for that shield. Riot Shield cannot be dropped again until that 20 energy has been expended. No longer triggers explosions on weapons such as the Opticor. Applies Electric Proc on enemy contact when hit with Shock.
Riot Shield (8 Energy Per Second): Dropped the energy per distance value, increased energy per time to compensate. Lightning form destroys the riotshield with a small aoe electric burst. Movement speed and Reload speed is cut to 80% when using primary weapons.

 

Tokamak Barrier (75 Energy, 500 Static Charges): Creates a Torus shaped Barrier with a 20 meter radius and 7 meter width. Reflects all non-friendly projectiles (Except Scorch flamethrowers and Infested toxic clouds) and in addition to the normal damage bonus, improves the range as well as travel speed of projectiles. While in lightning form and when within the Torus, hold 3 (or the other approriate key/button) to zip around the Torus, rapidly building static charges up to the maximum charge, with excess slowly granting the Torus ambient electric damage and energy regen. Rolling through the wall grants Volt the Riot Shield.

I am more than happy to listen to alternatives to Tokamak Barrier. It sounds wonderful, but I also know that it can get annoying as all hell in CQC.

 

 

Ultimate Ability: Quantum Warp / Thunder Dome  (Credit for Quantum Warp goes to the guy who came up with the quantum entanglement warp ability to replace speed in his rework idea, it just meshes here too perfectly in my eyes)

Quantum Warp (75 Energy):  Volt begins moving at 25% speed and cannot sprint while winding up this ability. After charging for 3 seconds, he blinks to the targeted area and leaves behind a clone of himself which deals 50% damage and lasts for 7 seconds, when it explodes with percent-of-health-based electric damage (Likely 15-25%) Retriggering the ability before the clone detonates causes the player to swap control essentially at will. (functionally, Volt and the clone are Quantum Entangled, and at the player's discretion can use one to divebomb a group then swap to the other and remain safe. The Volt that is CPU controlled always deals 50% damage) 

 

Thunder Dome(100 Energy, All Static Charges, minimum of 750): Volt Projects a huge dome of electricity (Base 20 second duration, base 20 meter range +2 meters per enemy within the dome) and overcharges himself while he remains in the dome. Within the dome, Enemies take ambient electric damage based extra stacks consumed (1 damage per second per stack over 750), all electronics, units, and dome boundaries have a chance to zap each other for a chunk of electric damage (150 +0.5 per stack consumed), and amped abilities work without static charges. Additionally, Volt's shield recharge delay is cut to 75%, his speed remains at the maximum as if he kept his Static Charge stacks and all abilities are amplified further within the dome:
Discharge: Enemies gain the tesla coil effect and the health cap is appropriately raised to 35% (25% for bosses).
Lightning Speed: Contact with enemies causes the electric burst that Shock currently does with the Discharge interaction (200 +0.5 per stack consumed for Thunder Dome). New Discharge warps Volt to the targeted area.
Tokamak Barrier: Non-Heavy units that enter the Torus are ragdolled and carried within the torus for the barrier's duration, taking impact damage upon impact with the Torus walls as well as light radiation damage over time. Heavy units take heavy radiation damage over time while within the Torus. Other ragdoll effects are amplified, such as the Riot Shield impact and Mag's Pull.
Quantum Warp: No longer requires the clone to detonate before reactivation. Volt switches controls in the order that the volt pairs were spawned.
Any damage dealt to enemies that does not occur because of volt (Namely ally damage) causes the thunderdome to build energy regen for allies within the dome.

Static Charge is reset to zero upon exiting the dome, which also ends the ability.

Obviously the number values I put in will probably have to be adjusted, but I'm just putting those there so that there is a complete template to work with.
For those of you who don't want to read the whole thing, here's the summary: Volt's passive becomes an amplifier for his current abilites with a slow buildup, meaning spamming amplified versions is impossible. Discharge gets shrunken down and becomes the upgrade to Shock, Speed gets buffed more to be slightly more interactive than "button press = speed boost" and the upgrade is a transformation for volt. Electric shield unchanged, Riot shield gains slightly higher per-time drain in exchange for no per-distance drain. Upgraded version crates a doughnut shaped bubble that's really neat, but harder to get around than snowglobe. That one's subject to change, ideas are welcome. In the void left by Discharge moving to an upgrade slot, Volt gets a teleport + a clone that he can bounce controls between, upgraded version is Thunderdome. Let your imagination run with that one.

As always, critique (brutal even, so long as it's not trash talk) is welcome, if not invited. (Unless it's something to do with the complexity of this, because Equinox is more complicated than this)

i like this, but i have one problem. 

Spoiler

how will you explain this to the beginners?

 

[Cytobel]

15 minutes ago, Aquasurge said:

i like this, but i have one problem. 

  Reveal hidden contents

how will you explain this to the beginners?

 

Like so:

Spoiler

https://store.alderac.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/incoming-baby.jpg

 

[SylvenStar]

@Cytobel Oh. Right. I forgot that Volt used to have that armor. I've been so dependent on shields on the few recent test runs with him that I probably haven't been noticing I've been popping the second shields are gone. You're right, 65 armor probably should be the base, especially if that's what Loki, the supposedly squishiest frame next to Vauban.
Here's the thing I like about the Static Charge resource. As a passive, it could be ignored entirely. One could, theoretically, run around without every expending the charges and still get a giant movement speed bonus without suffering detriments. The Amped powers are bonus cookies for people that want them. Not necessary (except for maybe Thunderdome) to function at high levels, but more than valuable enough to be a highly valued team member if you use it right.
And yes, you're absolutely right that it's a risky move, adding a resource. It could flop entirely and break Volt forever if DE can't balance it properly. However, we are already dangerously close to the point where Volt will have such negative stigma so as to get players kicked from parties at a 95-100% for using him. On top of that, a bold move will at least show that DE cares about Volt as much as they say they do, and they can always go backwards.

 

@AquasurgeWell, for one thing, I don't like that Volt became a starter frame to replace Loki. He never fit that role well aside from the fact it got nerfed to hell. Since Ember is kind of attached to Sargus Ruk, I would have to say Volt's replacement in the starter lineup would have to be Frost. Very easy to use, and a defensive frame available out of the gate.

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

Back when I started it was Excal frost and Banshee:)

[Wolfnrun]

12 hours ago, SylvenStar said:

I propose this as a rework. I will also post this in the ideas/concepts thread to try and make sure it gets read by somebody.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Ability Breakdown:

Each ability has 2 versions: Standard button press, Double button press. 

Base Stat changes:

Health//Shields: Unchanged.
Armor: Unchanged
Mobility: Unchanged, possibly decreased.
Sprint Speed: Unchanged.
Energy: 150 or 175

Passive: Static Charge
Stacks build at half of their current rate (Maybe even a quarter of it) and with the same method as they do currently, and power activation (When double tapped) consumes a number of stacks depending on the power as well as the current number of stacks, which Amps them. Stacks cap at 1000, and powers consume varying amounts of stacks to activate an amplified version. Stacks also passively boost Volt's movement speed, which caps at the 500 mark, and are slowly consumed to significantly boost air glide speed, as well as decrease the falling speed while floating (Think the Static thrusters from Infamous 1 & 2). Stacks also fade over time when in the air in general.

1st Ability: Shock / Discharge

Shock (25 Energy): Shock functions as normal, the end of shock has a 15% chance to trigger an electric proc. Damage is based on range combined with percent of health per link in the chain. If a circle of enemies is possible, it does so without consuming links on the final link to complete the circle. Circle links are included in the link count for damage, with 1% of target health damage per link. Enemies cannot be affected by more than one instance of damage per cast, and recasting does restart the stun timer.

Discharge (50 Energy, 250 Static Charges): A miniature version of the current Discharge (Probably 10 meter radius) Based off of target percent health (Base 2.5% of maximum health per second, 0.5% of maximum health Vs Bosses), health cap (Base 25% of target maximum health, 15% Vs Bosses) is localized to individual targets and not the power as a whole. Health cap also does not end the stun, only the damage. No Tesla coil effect. (Base Duration: 5 seconds)

 

 

2nd Ability: Speed Link / Lightning Form

Speed Link (50 Energy): Speed Link, rather than being a percent based boost to all affected warframes, first amplifies Volt's current speed even further, Then raises all affected warframe's sprint speed to equal that of the highest value. This means a Volt without speed mods and other allies could be boosted to the sprint speed of a Speed Loki Build (Assuming Volt can't accomplish higher speeds via Static Charge, which I haven't bothered calculating). Speed Link also boosts reload speed, weapon swap speed, animation cast speed and recharge time (On warframes that require a recharge time before reactivating abilities, including passives). After a certain distance, Ex. 100 meters or some other large distance) the link with Volt is broken.

Lightning Form (50 Energy 25 Static Charges per second): Transforms Volt into a bolt of electricity, losing access to Electric Shield/Tokamak Barrier, Discharge, weapons, and restricting him to ground and wall travel. In exchange, he gains triple his maximum movement speed, can travel freely along walls and ceilings as if they were floors, applies Speed Link to allies on contact (Based off Sprint speed, not Lightning speed) and can pass through enemies applying electric procs (Without damage) and regaining 10 Stacks of Static Charge. (An enemy can only be affected by this 4 seconds after release from the proc) Triggering Shock while in this form functions as normal, but a second trigger warps Volt to the last enemy in the link.

 

 

3rd Ability: Electric Shield / Tokamak Barrier

Electric Shield (50 Energy) 25-50% increase in size, otherwise unchanged. Keep the 6 shield cap, reactivation while standing within one triggers Riot Shield and refunds 20 energy on the first riot shield activation for that shield. Riot Shield cannot be dropped again until that 20 energy has been expended. No longer triggers explosions on weapons such as the Opticor. Applies Electric Proc on enemy contact when hit with Shock.
Riot Shield (8 Energy Per Second): Dropped the energy per distance value, increased energy per time to compensate. Lightning form destroys the riotshield with a small aoe electric burst. Movement speed and Reload speed is cut to 80% when using primary weapons.

 

Tokamak Barrier (75 Energy, 500 Static Charges): Creates a Torus shaped Barrier with a 20 meter radius and 7 meter width. Reflects all non-friendly projectiles (Except Scorch flamethrowers and Infested toxic clouds) and in addition to the normal damage bonus, improves the range as well as travel speed of projectiles. While in lightning form and when within the Torus, hold 3 (or the other approriate key/button) to zip around the Torus, rapidly building static charges up to the maximum charge, with excess slowly granting the Torus ambient electric damage and energy regen. Rolling through the wall grants Volt the Riot Shield.

I am more than happy to listen to alternatives to Tokamak Barrier. It sounds wonderful, but I also know that it can get annoying as all hell in CQC.

 

 

Ultimate Ability: Quantum Warp / Thunder Dome  (Credit for Quantum Warp goes to the guy who came up with the quantum entanglement warp ability to replace speed in his rework idea, it just meshes here too perfectly in my eyes)

Quantum Warp (75 Energy):  Volt begins moving at 25% speed and cannot sprint while winding up this ability. After charging for 3 seconds, he blinks to the targeted area and leaves behind a clone of himself which deals 50% damage and lasts for 7 seconds, when it explodes with percent-of-health-based electric damage (Likely 15-25%) Retriggering the ability before the clone detonates causes the player to swap control essentially at will. (functionally, Volt and the clone are Quantum Entangled, and at the player's discretion can use one to divebomb a group then swap to the other and remain safe. The Volt that is CPU controlled always deals 50% damage) 

 

Thunder Dome(100 Energy, All Static Charges, minimum of 750): Volt Projects a huge dome of electricity (Base 20 second duration, base 20 meter range +2 meters per enemy within the dome) and overcharges himself while he remains in the dome. Within the dome, Enemies take ambient electric damage based extra stacks consumed (1 damage per second per stack over 750), all electronics, units, and dome boundaries have a chance to zap each other for a chunk of electric damage (150 +0.5 per stack consumed), and amped abilities work without static charges. Additionally, Volt's shield recharge delay is cut to 75%, his speed remains at the maximum as if he kept his Static Charge stacks and all abilities are amplified further within the dome:
Discharge: Enemies gain the tesla coil effect and the health cap is appropriately raised to 35% (25% for bosses).
Lightning Speed: Contact with enemies causes the electric burst that Shock currently does with the Discharge interaction (200 +0.5 per stack consumed for Thunder Dome). New Discharge warps Volt to the targeted area.
Tokamak Barrier: Non-Heavy units that enter the Torus are ragdolled and carried within the torus for the barrier's duration, taking impact damage upon impact with the Torus walls as well as light radiation damage over time. Heavy units take heavy radiation damage over time while within the Torus. Other ragdoll effects are amplified, such as the Riot Shield impact and Mag's Pull.
Quantum Warp: No longer requires the clone to detonate before reactivation. Volt switches controls in the order that the volt pairs were spawned.
Any damage dealt to enemies that does not occur because of volt (Namely ally damage) causes the thunderdome to build energy regen for allies within the dome.

Static Charge is reset to zero upon exiting the dome, which also ends the ability.

Obviously the number values I put in will probably have to be adjusted, but I'm just putting those there so that there is a complete template to work with.
For those of you who don't want to read the whole thing, here's the summary: Volt's passive becomes an amplifier for his current abilites with a slow buildup, meaning spamming amplified versions is impossible. Discharge gets shrunken down and becomes the upgrade to Shock, Speed gets buffed more to be slightly more interactive than "button press = speed boost" and the upgrade is a transformation for volt. Electric shield unchanged, Riot shield gains slightly higher per-time drain in exchange for no per-distance drain. Upgraded version crates a doughnut shaped bubble that's really neat, but harder to get around than snowglobe. That one's subject to change, ideas are welcome. In the void left by Discharge moving to an upgrade slot, Volt gets a teleport + a clone that he can bounce controls between, upgraded version is Thunderdome. Let your imagination run with that one.

As always, critique (brutal even, so long as it's not trash talk) is welcome, if not invited. (Unless it's something to do with the complexity of this, because Equinox is more complicated than this)

Oh wow that looks amazing! I once had an idea were volt would be like valkyr except his body would be a weapon!

I'm not sure what to say other than I love it! 

Edited July 21, 2016 by Wolfnrun

[EnderDDT]

On 7/19/2016 at 4:42 PM, [DE]Danielle said:

Volt's changes have been generally well received! Thank you for all of your feedback, we appreciate you testing Volt and sharing your thoughts with the devs. 
 

 

What does this mean? "generally well received!"

There seems to be two ways to interpret this: Either, "people are glad to see changes happening and are appreciative that work is being done". Or, "people think that the changes are mostly as they should be and anything that is still a problem is not super important".

If the first is how that phrase is meant, with it being simply that and nothing more, than I wholeheartedly agree. We (the players) do generally very much appreciate the work that is put in, recognize the difficulty of it, and are glad to see that some longstanding problems are beginning to be addressed for changes. While many of us point out that there is still work to be done, we do appreciate the work that is and has been done.

I feel it is important to point out one thing at this point. Pre-rework volt users generally built him exclusively around either his #2 or #3, while ignoring the build necessities for his #1 and #4 in higher level missions. The lesser used abilities mathematically just didn't stand up as a seriously good option, but they were sometimes used to fill the gaps left by other things (such as a #1 while reloading or for quick disposable CC) or simply for the fun of it (such as #4 in a "thunder from above" manner). As of this point the useful aspects of Volt's #2 and #3 abilities have remained generally power-neutral (as there have been some slightly strengthened and weakened aspects), while the changes on Volt's #4 could hardly be anything but positive considering how bad a place his old #4 was in before. Therefore (if you focus on things other than the whole "drop activation" issue from earlier), this could be viewed as though the changes were "generally well recieved". This is the sort of middle ground between "we apreciate the work that is being done" and "we think the work is basically done". What is a bit frightening is that this middle ground may easily tip over from the first interpretation to the second. If this happens than it will directly result in bad things not only for Volt but for everything that comes after and is affected by the same mindset.

As for the second interpretation, it is just objectively wrong. There have been a handful of people showing up to say "yay, things have been done and I like everything", and a few who liked "the feel" of one thing or another while pointing out other problems; but literally everyone who has done the work to run the numbers and to look at the extended results of things agrees that there are some serious issues that need to be addressed. We ALL agree that his Riot Shield has too many restrictions, its current form does not fix Volt's overly squishiness problem, and (while we are still debating the degree) we also agree that it costs way too much. We ALL agree that his #4 is unreliable as a CC ability against anything but high-armored targets, that the damage is not enough to do the job of weapons in the late game and basically nonexistant against those high-armored targets, and that the delivery requirements (of standing on the ground in the middle of a group of enemies, for a long enough time to give enemies time to shoot at Volt, for inconsistent and non-instant results) is not something that Volt can consistently survive. While we focus on build requirements by talking about different aspects, we ALL agree that Volt's build requirements to make certain things work (zenerik, primed mods, corrupted mods, AND more) are a little bit crazy. He just needs too much to be decent and many have pointed out how these required things are unavailable to new players and so even more unfitting for a starter. Each person has their own unique viewpoint and while we attach different levels of importance to each of these things and have different ideas on how to fix the problems the fact that we all agree so much on identifying the main problems is telling.

[Cytobel]

10 hours ago, EnderDDT said:

 

What does this mean? "generally well received!"

There seems to be two ways to interpret this: Either, "people are glad to see changes happening and are appreciative that work is being done". Or, "people think that the changes are mostly as they should be and anything that is still a problem is not super important".

If the first is how that phrase is meant, with it being simply that and nothing more, than I wholeheartedly agree. We (the players) do generally very much appreciate the work that is put in, recognize the difficulty of it, and are glad to see that some longstanding problems are beginning to be addressed for changes. While many of us point out that there is still work to be done, we do appreciate the work that is and has been done.

I feel it is important to point out one thing at this point. Pre-rework volt users generally built him exclusively around either his #2 or #3, while ignoring the build necessities for his #1 and #4 in higher level missions. The lesser used abilities mathematically just didn't stand up as a seriously good option, but they were sometimes used to fill the gaps left by other things (such as a #1 while reloading or for quick disposable CC) or simply for the fun of it (such as #4 in a "thunder from above" manner). As of this point the useful aspects of Volt's #2 and #3 abilities have remained generally power-neutral (as there have been some slightly strengthened and weakened aspects), while the changes on Volt's #4 could hardly be anything but positive considering how bad a place his old #4 was in before. Therefore (if you focus on things other than the whole "drop activation" issue from earlier), this could be viewed as though the changes were "generally well recieved". This is the sort of middle ground between "we apreciate the work that is being done" and "we think the work is basically done". What is a bit frightening is that this middle ground may easily tip over from the first interpretation to the second. If this happens than it will directly result in bad things not only for Volt but for everything that comes after and is affected by the same mindset.

As for the second interpretation, it is just objectively wrong. There have been a handful of people showing up to say "yay, things have been done and I like everything", and a few who liked "the feel" of one thing or another while pointing out other problems; but literally everyone who has done the work to run the numbers and to look at the extended results of things agrees that there are some serious issues that need to be addressed. We ALL agree that his Riot Shield has too many restrictions, its current form does not fix Volt's overly squishiness problem, and (while we are still debating the degree) we also agree that it costs way too much. We ALL agree that his #4 is unreliable as a CC ability against anything but high-armored targets, that the damage is not enough to do the job of weapons in the late game and basically nonexistant against those high-armored targets, and that the delivery requirements (of standing on the ground in the middle of a group of enemies, for a long enough time to give enemies time to shoot at Volt, for inconsistent and non-instant results) is not something that Volt can consistently survive. While we focus on build requirements by talking about different aspects, we ALL agree that Volt's build requirements to make certain things work (zenerik, primed mods, corrupted mods, AND more) are a little bit crazy. He just needs too much to be decent and many have pointed out how these required things are unavailable to new players and so even more unfitting for a starter. Each person has their own unique viewpoint and while we attach different levels of importance to each of these things and have different ideas on how to fix the problems the fact that we all agree so much on identifying the main problems is telling.

Far more eloquently stated than I usually manage, and with a considerably more reasonable tone.

I must especially agree that build requirements are asinine for Volt as of now, and I'm very happy to see others hate the necessity of insuring the game acknowledges that you're on the ground before it lets you cast Discharge in the air anyway.  

I'm likely making a huge assumption here, but I'd say many people who have been happy with Volt tended to just run Speed builds.  I can understand this, and I don't disagree that such a build can be effective.  My entire purpose behind suggesting that Volt merge Speed into Discharge was to give us a chance at another skill without removing Speeds utility, just it's energy tax aspect.

Frankly, we ARE happy with the fact that Volt is being reworked, but please note the tense.  This is still an ongoing process, and it's not likely to be done until we see some far larger changes.  Many of us have hesitated to point out the current state of Electricity damage in game.  Many of us have neglected to indicate whether we meant Volt or Volt Prime felt workable.  Many of us haven't bothered to indicate our preferred builds.  So I can't feel too suprised that DE doesn't have a moee solid response to our ongoing concerns.

End of the day, it's a game.  If it's a game, it should be fun.  When it's more work to get fun out of it than we put into the occupation that we derive wages from, there's something amiss.

Edited July 22, 2016 by Cytobel

[Cytobel]

I hate to post back-to-back, but anybody else catch that stream?  It seems finishing Volt's rework is less important than Dark Sector, that thing we just can't wait to ignore again.

Catty of me?  Sure.  DESteve probably doesn't deserve flak from me.  On the other hand, who does?  Seriously, what's with this whole "change it all NOW!" kick?  Why aren't we seeing the usual craftsmanship and care DE at least attempted previously?

Dammit all, just dammit... all.....

I want my working, fun Volt that doesn't have all these damn restrictions between me and fun...

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

3 hours ago, Cytobel said:

I hate to post back-to-back, but anybody else catch that stream?  It seems finishing Volt's rework is less important than Dark Sector, that thing we just can't wait to ignore again.

Catty of me?  Sure.  DESteve probably doesn't deserve flak from me.  On the other hand, who does?  Seriously, what's with this whole "change it all NOW!" kick?  Why aren't we seeing the usual craftsmanship and care DE at least attempted previously?

Dammit all, just dammit... all.....

I want my working, fun Volt that doesn't have all these damn restrictions between me and fun...

Amprex, castanas, serro. Armor set from baro ki teer that channels electricity (don't remember what it's called), that one electric bullet jump mod, shocking speed, low level corpus map.

Take every electrical thing possible and just try to pretend....

Edited July 22, 2016 by (PS4)WINDMILEYNO
I couldnt...the meme...it just happened

[Burnthesteak87]

On 20/7/2016 at 11:52 PM, RealPandemonium said:

The echo chamber in this thread is becoming obnoxious.  Try to post something besides blanket complaints, memes, and original content.

If your post does not include feedback that is well-sourced, identifies a particular issue, breaks it down, and proposes solutions that are precedented and feasible in today's Warframe, it probably shouldn't be posted, as it will only be obstructive noise to the devs that are actually reading through the thread.

+1

Volt's Feedback Thread turned into a private chat, a recreative room.

No way developers can't manage to find good feedback by digging through an infinite wall of Gif spam, offtopic, chatters, memes, unnecessary puns made to gather upvotes.

Obviously so few people gave attention to verbose posts like that from @SylvenStar.
Congrats for mixing scientific knowledge with gameplay. Tokamak and Lighting Form interaction is a pretty nice concept.
Maybe too much revolutionary to realize, but it makes theorycrafting and fantasy spin.

 

Edited July 22, 2016 by Burnthesteak87

[FitzSimmons]

DE, can you improve capacitance to be as good as leech vampire in term of restoring shield and give overshield? 3% then shared between allies? it takes time to get overshield. 

at least make volt to be able to regain shield faster by shocking enemies affected by discharge, shock does burst damage on enemy discharge tower right? make shock and discharge can work together for capacitance.

[RealPandemonium]

57 minutes ago, FitzSimmons said:

DE, can you improve capacitance to be as good as leech vampire in term of restoring shield and give overshield? 3% then shared between allies? it takes time to get overshield. 

at least make volt to be able to regain shield faster by shocking enemies affected by discharge, shock does burst damage on enemy discharge tower right? make shock and discharge can work together for capacitance.

Vampire Leech is just silly.  It should have been nerfed ages ago.  

[Wolfnrun]

5 hours ago, (PS4)WINDMILEYNO said:

Amprex, castanas, serro. Armor set from baro ki teer that channels electricity (don't remember what it's called), that one electric bullet jump mod, shocking speed, low level corpus map.

Take every electrical thing possible and just try to pretend....

 if volt doesn't come up... lot's of disappointment

[Kotsender_Quasimir]

48 minutes ago, RealPandemonium said:

Energy Vampire Leech is just silly.  It should have been nerfed ages ago.  

slight correction.

edit: as for this thread: i guess it had its day. goodnight, sweet prince. <3

(i'm sure the remaining issues will be fixed asap. (*cough*likegun/shieldinteractions*cough*))

Edited July 22, 2016 by Kotsender_Quasimir

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

9 hours ago, Burnthesteak87 said:

+1

Volt's Feedback Thread turned into a private chat, a recreative room.

No way developers can't manage to find good feedback by digging through an infinite wall of Gif spam, offtopic, chatters, memes, unnecessary puns made to gather upvotes.

Obviously so few people gave attention to verbose posts like that from @SylvenStar.
Congrats for mixing scientific knowledge with gameplay. Tokamak and Lighting Form interaction is a pretty nice concept.
Maybe too much revolutionary to realize, but it makes theorycrafting and fantasy spin.

You guys are right, and if I played a part in causing this frustration (im more than fairly certain that is the case....) than I need to say that definitely was not my intention. And I don't feel anyone else was here just for the upvotes.

I thought we were storm riders....

Not fishing for upvotes, just frustrated. I vented my frustrations, and it wasn't constuctive, i know. My apologies.

The rework feed back threads were unpinned, but not locked. That doesn't really mean anything, except that we were given the ability to keep the post going, but unless you respond in here quite frquently, it would soon just sink down to the bottom of the forums like all the other rework posts. 

And the message from a very hard working member of DE was welcome, but the tone of the message, at the same time the threads were unpinned, but not locked, made me give up hope.

It felt like DE didn't care. Its felt that way for a while, so I just gave up. 

All the truth that can be said about the current volt has been said

What else is there to say?

Now we can come up with new ideas, like the quantum one that is really brilliant, but who is honestly listening at this point?

DE was perfectly fine releasing volt the way they did, they made a few minor additions, and did some big fixes, but every limitation is pretty much still there plus a new one. The only actual change from the original released rework that we were able to do anything about was the speed opt- in thing. I would expect discharges spotty targeting to be worked on, so I don't count that. Riot sheild was added, but might as well not have even been for all the negatives. When would you ever pick up the sheild and shoot with a pistol? If you don't wish to use shocking speed, I guess it helps, but shocking speed is a free effect, though it takes up a mod slot....(my complaints). 

I wasn't there for all of Volts nerfs, but it seems like DE is worried he would be some game breaking frame. But how? Overload going through multiple tile sets was not intended, everyone should know that, I know that, but what else was there? Why has vanilla volt never recieved extra armor? How many frames that started at 15 armor are still at 15?

I want people to be happy about volt. There will always be someone who isn't happy, and right now that person is me, and that's fine because at least other people are happy.

I don't believe Volt is going to be looked at again for a long time. But I don't want to be here, being immature, making serious volt fans feel like they need to go to another post, that is not what I am trying to do at all.

Edited July 22, 2016 by (PS4)WINDMILEYNO
Tone

[SylvenStar]

One thing needs to be established here: As he is, Volt is trying to do everything at once, and all of his abilities are so insignificant you have to build specifically towards one power to make him even remotely compete with other frames, who still outshine him by a longshot. You can't hold the name "jack of all trades" if you aren't any good at what you're trying to do. There's a very big difference between "master of none," and "poor access to everything." There's also a difference between "Synergy" and "interactions between powers." He has power interactions, but no synergy. extra damage when chaining powers isn't synergy, it's a couple of bonus chocolate chunks in a chocolate chip cookie.

Mag's power synergy doesn't come from the extra flat damage of magnetize, it comes from the defense strip and the metal shards from polarize and the ability to use pull to bring enemies into range for Crush, or to position them just right for a well placed Magnetize. 

Ember's power synergy comes from being able to stack multiple forms of fire damage over time with CC all at once, AND amplify those effects. It isn't true synergy, but it's better than what Volt has.

Rhino? Iron Skin lets him Charge in without worrying about damage, as well as move into a position to hit as many enemies as possible with his ult.

Banshee? Sonar creates weak points, Silence stuns them to make them easier to hit.

Nyx? No true synergy, but she has a power for EVERY situation, not just a few unique ones (Though I'll never understand the point of using psychic bolts over something else), therefore her powers cover each other rather than augment them.

Excalibur? Radial blind so he can whip out Exalted Blade without worry of being gunned down.

But all volt does is get slightly larger chunks of bonus damage, and the ability to drop shields in priority spots faster. Whoop de doo. It's more effective, efficient, and faster to just bullet jump-flip-glide, especially if you've got a bullet jump augment in the exilus slot. Speed is really only useful for rushing missions and those passive perks like melee speed and now reload speed.

 

I designed the rework I came up with in the way I did because I DO like the tool kit that Volt currently has. There ARE situations where it is useful, but in higher levels, those are sadly far and few between. As a master of electricity, he should be big, loud, and devastating (Hence the Thunder Dome), not this awkward skirmisher that dashes between the corners of the room setting up weird sniper perches. More importantly, I feel like his passive should reward those players that DON'T spam abilities like crazy. Volt could easily fit that niche which is currently empty.

[FitzSimmons]

8 hours ago, SylvenStar said:

As a master of electricity, he should be big, loud, and devastating

is master of electricity same with master of thunder? like electricity god compared to thunder god? for thunder god i get it, like thor, big, loud and devastating.   

[Aquasurge]

25 minutes ago, FitzSimmons said:

is master of electricity same with master of thunder? like electricity god compared to thunder god? for thunder god i get it, like thor, big, loud and devastating.   

i'd prefer storm god any day of the week.

[RealPandemonium]

12 hours ago, SylvenStar said:

One thing needs to be established here: As he is, Volt is trying to do everything at once, and all of his abilities are so insignificant you have to build specifically towards one power

People have been posting this truism for years, and it has never held water.  Please highlight why you think this is the case.

[Cytobel]

I think it may be more accurate to point out that Volt NEEDS everything.  To build a non-Speed Volt you need Efficiency, Range, and Duration, whereas Speed Volt requires Strength and Duration.  Worse still, you cannot make room for ANY optional or QoL mods.  It's all rare and primed stat most, which makes him the most unfriendly Warframe to ever be a starter.

Yes, I've seen arguments that claim he's "just fine as is", but I haven't seen preferred builds (aside from Speed build and/or Naramon lens) to back this up.  I also haven't seen many references as to WHICH Volt people think is fine, and there are pretty significant differences in armor and energy pool between prime and base.

When you look at those two factors it makes many of those arguments a bit non-specific and vague...

Feel free to prove me wrong.  The best I will manage for Volt Prime is a 200% Str, 170% Eff, 145% Rng, and ~120% Dur.  I need to forma out a D polarity to make it happen, and drop Armored Agility for Intensify.  That's my "everything Volt" build statline.  I'll add a screenshot if needed.

http://content.screencast.com/users/Cytobel/folders/Jing/media/256f4661-f5d7-4599-9820-d0a53fde3d36/2016-07-23_0528.png

(Yeah, I'm gonna have Intensify sitting in the last slot and Stretch at max when I've releveled Volt Prime)

Edited July 23, 2016 by Cytobel