Volt Rework Feedback [Post Update 18.13]

[KaeseSchnitte]

There have been many different suggestions regarding Volt recently, but most of them want to turn Volt on his head, altering his kit completely. Since I am a fan of the current Volt, I will try to to build on what we have, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.

 

Static Discharge:

1. Damage Storage:
   • The stored damage is uncapped, but starts denegenerating exponentially the higher it gets if it surpasses a certain threshold
     • AoEs will deal a percentage of the stored damage to each enemy hit
2. Trigger:
   • The damage stored will only be applied to Volt's abilities. Any other means of damage will not trigger his passive

• Lightning strike as visual

Shock:

1. Alternative Fire:
   • Additional to the current functionality, keeping the button pressed should cause Volt to continuously fire lightning bolts
     • Continuous damage and energy drain
     • One handed
     • Cannot chain beyond the very first damage tick
2. Synergies:

• Continuously firing at Electric Shields should charge them up to a cap, dealing more damage the higher it's charged
  • When reaching the cap, Electric Shield will also proc a guaranteed electricity proc on enemies touching it
• Continuously firing at a tesla coil-ed enemy will increase the damage that enemy does to himself and enemies affected by him for each hit of Shock
  • Without cap (the cap is the duration of Discharge or the health of the enemy)

Speed:

1. Mobility:
   • Keeping the jump- and forward button pressed will cause Volt to run up wall, instead of jumping
   • Superior mobility both horizontally and vertically
2. Utility:
   • Reduced cast time while under the effect of Speed
     • Similar to and stacking with Natural Talent
3. Synergies:
   • When running through an Electric Shield, a player affected by Speed will dash forward
     • The range of the dash can be affected by Power Range
     • Could be added to Shocking Speed augment

• Augment: Shocking Speed
  • Make the range of the augment stack slightly with Power Range

Electric Shield:

1. Passive:
   • A percentage of the damage absorbed will be added to Volt's passive
2. Utility:
   • Usable primary weapon while using the Current Shield
     • Given that Primary Weapons are arguably making up the weakest weapon class right now, this looks like a pointless restriction
   • Capped energy drain by movement while using the Current Shield
     • To not punish the use of Speed alongside of carrying the shield
   • Move the Current Shield closer to Volt
     • To better guard Volt against angled attacks
3. Synergies:
   • Casting Electric Shield while running or jumping will always spawn it in front of you
     • To keep the synergy with Speed

Discharge:

1. Damage:
   • Damage cap removed or increased
2. Duration:
   • Reduce Discharge's base duration
   • Make Discharge scale better with Power Duration, both positively and negatively
     • The duration an enemy is "zapped" should be based on Power Duration, not on an arbitrary cap that makes the ability scale worse and more unreliable in its duration

 

My suggestion aims at making Volt a strong supporter, focussing mainly on range and duration, but also giving the option to use strength by removing the arbitrary cap of Discharge.

Casting Shock on Electric Shields and enemies affected by Discharge is intended to have a noticable enough effect to be worthwhile, even without high Power Strength. Electric Shield feeding absorbed damage into Volt's passive is meant to further uncouple Volt's ability to deal damage from having high Power Strength. Likewise, the ability to use your primary weapon while carrying a shield is meant to give you more opportunity to safely use your primary, to make you less reliant on hitting hard with your abilities.

I understand that many players want to go fast as Volt, but quite frankly, I think that Volt has much more to offer with low, or even negative Power Strength, both currently and with my suggested rework. I think that my suggestions reflect that and I hope, that if you are willing to invest in both range and duration, you get an excellent support frame in return.

Edited May 19, 2017 by KaeseSchnitte
Shock with additions, Speed with synergies, Electric Riot Shield and an uncapped Discharge

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

3 hours ago, Satinpuppies said:

bottom line, I could solo with volt in sorties before. Now I can't. His ult lost more than it gained.

Grineer sorties are super easy to solo when they never do anything but twitch

[Nedow40]

47 minutes ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

Speed:

• Keeping the jump- and forward button pressed will cause Volt to run up wall, instead of jumping
  • Supperior mobility both horizontally and vertically

Yes please!

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

Good ideas for the passive and its interaction with sheild. I fully support the sheild carry changes.

Volts passive adding damage to his abilities alone instead of to the weapons is great, especially since you can already get extra damage from shooting through an electric sheild (not that any of this extra damage is really adding up to anything)

--->I would hope for speed to be toggle instead of on a timer. The team buff aspect can still be on a timer or some other thing.

Discharges interaction with shock looks like a faint convergence orb surrounding an enemy. Its not an explosion, theres no extra lightning effect, its just some fake made up graphics effect pulled from somewhere else. Id change that too. 

And yeah, lets keep hoping something happens. Id steer clear of palpatine hands, precisely becase DE likes weapons>warframes, and youd probable end up with the spectral scream<ignis thing.

But the passive might help.

Edited December 28, 2016 by (PS4)WINDMILEYNO
Edit

[KaeseSchnitte]

11 minutes ago, (PS4)WINDMILEYNO said:

--->I would hope for speed to be toggle instead of on a timer. The team buff aspect can still be on a timer or some other thing.

Discharges interaction with shock looks like a faint convergence orb surrounding an enemy. Its not an explosion, theres no extra lightning effect, its just some fake made up graphics effect pulled from somewhere else. Id change that too. 

And yeah, lets keep hoping something happens. Id steer clear of palpatine hands, precisely becase DE likes weapons>warframes, and ypud probable end up with the spectral scream<ignis thing.

But the passive might help.

The toggle is a very good idea, the problem would just be that it is kinda hard to justify if your teammates are also affected.

Discharge currently turns affected enemies into "tesla coils", zapping and damaging other nearby enemies. Using Shock on an enemy affected by Discharge just increases this damage he is radiating. That is how I envisioned this "AoE".

Shock could benefit from Primary mods. DE has done this before and it worked out fine for now.

Edited December 28, 2016 by KaeseSchnitte

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

6 minutes ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

The toggle is a very good idea, the problem would just be that it is kinda hard to justify if your teammates are also affected.

DIscharge currently turns affected enemies into "tesla coils", zapping and damaging nearby enemies. Using Shock on an enemy affected by Discharge could just increase this damage he is radiating.

Shock could benefit from Primary mods. DE has done this before and it worked out fine for now.

Shock on discharge does (supposebly). Thats what they said when he was first rework. Its just that the interaction was never noticeable, as an animation or damage wise. I ran around for an hour continuosly shocking stuff to see if i could tell if anything actually was happening, and yes, its a fake orb looking affect that ever so breifly surrounds one tesla coiled enemy, in which i must assume they then add a few more numbers of damage to the enemies around them. Nothing as significant as what they made it sound like when the rework was released. Thats their idea of synergy for volt though, that, and having to shock each individual electric sheild instead of being able to cast shock on multiple sheilds with one cast....

[Temptress]

1 hour ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

 

• Usable primary weapon and drastically decreased energy cost while Volt is carrying (moving) a shield
  • This will allow Volt to use the shield as a riot shield, protecting him from projectiles coming from the front

When the Volt riot shield was suggested, it was designed to keep balance in mind, versus saying "here's your mobile shield and your soma! expand crit"

 

Every other idea is fine in its own manner, however I must disagree with the idea of riot shield using a primary. 

[KaeseSchnitte]

5 minutes ago, Server said:

When the Volt riot shield was suggested, it was designed to keep balance in mind, versus saying "here's your mobile shield and your soma! expand crit"

 

Every other idea is fine in its own manner, however I must disagree with the idea of riot shield using a primary. 

I'd agree with you, if it weren't for frames like Valkyr, which are able to deal way more damage while being completely invulnerable. I'm not saying that other frames should be nerfed, just that the bit of movable cover Volt would get is still less than other frames get. But if the crit chance does indeed prove to be OP, then it can be removed from the movable shields.

10 minutes ago, (PS4)WINDMILEYNO said:

Shock on discharge does (supposebly). Thats what they said when he was first rework. Its just that the interaction was never noticeable, as an animation or damage wise. I ran around for an hour continuosly shocking stuff to see if i could tell if anything actually was happening, and yes, its a fake orb looking affect that ever so breifly surrounds one tesla coiled enemy, in which i must assume they then add a few more numbers of damage to the enemies around them. Nothing as significant as what they made it sound like when the rework was released. Thats their idea of synergy for volt though, that, and having to shock each individual electric sheild instead of being able to cast shock on multiple sheilds with one cast....

Ah ok, then I misread your previous post. If Shock already works this way, then it really shouldn't be a problem to make the effect more pronounced.

Edited December 28, 2016 by KaeseSchnitte

[Kratos]

You have my seal of approval, here!

[KaeseSchnitte]

Only the best for you! :D

[Jackviator]

I like all of these ideas, save for the idea of having Speed be a toggle. As-is it's possible, if one uses Zenurik and max efficiency, to "out-energize" the energy drain from running with the shield, and therefore not lose energy, or even gain a few points over time as one is running and gunning with the shield. If Speed were a toggle that would no longer be a possibility, and it would be much more energy-inefficient to both use Speed and run with the shield, even if the drain was reduced as you suggested. I'd prefer that Speed instead have its duration doubled, from where it's at now (10) to 20 seconds so one doesn't have to build quite so much into duration to use it effectively.

I'd also add that the damage cap on Discharge should be removed entirely, so that enemies aren't able to escape it after only a second or two if they're clustered together, because as it is now it's very unreliable CC at the best of times.

One more idea: he should have his base speed increased from 1.0 to 1.15-1.25. He's supposed to be a speedster, so why does he have the same base running speed as Rhino Prime?

Edited December 28, 2016 by Jackviator

[KaeseSchnitte]

That is indeed true. Having Speed toggled would take a dumb on your energy pool after a while. I did forget that.

As for the damage cap and the movement speed, while I agree that those could be buffed, I try to keep numbers out of my suggestions, since I think that the devs can make more accurate assumptions about the balancing than I can.

[Temptress]

4 hours ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

I'd agree with you, if it weren't for frames like Valkyr, which are able to deal way more damage while being completely invulnerable. I'm not saying that other frames should be nerfed, just that the bit of movable cover Volt would get is still less than other frames get.

The catch here is Valkyr is restricted to melee only, losing her primary secondary and melee weapon in favor of exalted claws.

 

Riot shield currently is the power to protect your front, getting the electric benefits in return to restricting you to secondary and melee. The only change that needs to be made is either make it timed while carrying or make it drained while carrying, not both. 

[KaeseSchnitte]

I don't think that it would be too OP, but I guess the devs can figure that out if they are ever to test out my suggestion. It would just be nice to be able to do what everyone thought they could do when they heard "You can pick up your shields" for the first time.

[taiiat]

your alternate mode for Shock will surely end up like Spectral Scream, i.e. useless.

i wouldn't be against being able to do that on walls.

not being able to use one of your Guns is certainly pointless. stopped making any sense years ago. Secondary Weapons have been minimum equal to Primary Weapons for a long time.

4 hours ago, Server said:

When the Volt riot shield was suggested, it was designed to keep balance in mind

oh no! i'm forced to use my superior Gun!

[(PSN)CaptainIMalik]

I have always suggested the Sith shock 

++++++++1 to me

[Guest]

6 hours ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

Static Discharge:

• The damage stored will only be applied to Volt's Shock or Discharge ability. Any other means of damage will not trigger his passive

Shock:

• Holding the button will cause Volt to continuously shoot close- to mid range lightning bolts from both hands Palpatine-style at enemies

YES DEW IT!

Spoiler

 

While it's very likely to be what he mentioned.

2 minutes ago, taiiat said:

your alternate mode for Shock will surely end up like Spectral Scream, i.e. useless.

But I still want it!!! JUST FOR THE PLEASUREEEEEEEEE <3

 

I think if I might add a little thought, if power range can affect the arc and the range of this non-stop lightning and the lightning if self has 100% shock proc I can see it to be used as a CC, or at least some usage for the awesome feeling of force lightning.

[KaeseSchnitte]

4 minutes ago, taiiat said:

your alternate mode for Shock will surely end up like Spectral Scream, i.e. useless.

 

Well, it is useless now as well, so at worst you wouldn't lose anything.

[(PSN)CaptainIMalik]

8 hours ago, Date_Terumune said:

He just went from Damage Dealing frame to low tier support thats all.

 

We can only hope for another rework in the next year... or another one.

How much damage did he really do??? The stories... 

[Kotsender_Quasimir]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)CaptainIMalik said:

How much damage did he really do??? The stories... 

indeed, talk about romanticization.

overload was infamous for being one of if not the worst 4 in the entire game... only being viable as a damage dealing skill on a handful of tilesets and even there only once. it's cc potential was easily matched by a couple of shocks... one might argue about the effectivity of discharge with its damage cap: anyway it's better than overload ever was. and i see more volts nowadays in pugs than a year ago, not only capture missions... purely anecdotal of course.

[Cyphrus]

20 hours ago, LunarEdge7 said:

Never wanted an argument. Wanted a polite debate. I'm okay with either role he becomes to be in the future, since I like playing the killer or support.

If you want him to deal damage and have the basic electric procs that should still stay as it's what it does in Warframe, then I can only see %hp dmg abilities as a viable solution. It'd be weird to me, to be able to deal OP damage and stun continuously like an Ember without augmented WoF.

I use argument abrasively and I apologize for that, years on the debate and mock trial team will do that to you. I believe most people here want Volt as the Palpatine of Warframe so to speak and I couldn't agree more. That is what he is advertised as and that is what he should be as a lightning warframe. 

[(PSN)CaptainIMalik]

2 minutes ago, Cyphrus said:

I use argument abrasively and I apologize for that, years on the debate and mock trial team will do that to you. I believe most people here want Volt as the Palpatine of Warframe so to speak and I couldn't agree more. That is what he is advertised as and that is what he should be as a lightning warframe. 

And as a lightning Warframe, I will forever be salty that he is naturally slower than Loki

Edited December 29, 2016 by (PS4)CaptainIMalik

[taiiat]

28 minutes ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

Well, it is useless now as well

cheap guaranteed Stuns on groups of Enemies plus some Damage == useless

good to know

[Cyphrus]

Sadly Volt will not get a rework any time soon if ever, DE will most likely make a new frame with better powers with a theme similar to Volt. More money for them that way, I've actually stopped buying plat. I loved this game and was very happy to be a founder in fact this was the first game that I was a founder for that I could really say I was proud of the money I spent supporting the Devs. They had a good vision, great communication and listened. As it stands now that vision is gone the communication is negligible except in times to basically tell the community they are over reacting and such. It may be petty of me to say I've stopped supporting the Devs based on these reasons but to me it is enough. 

[Cytobel]

Not to open a can of worms, but what does Volt NEED?

I'm serious here.  What does he need in terms of reworks/buffs to make him catch back up with the pack in your opinion(s)?

Me, I'd buff his sprint speed to a 1.2 and up his base energy max to 225, and his armor to 65 (for non-Prime).  Any tweaking to skills needs to consider the fact that Electricity gargles testicles as damage and WILL be reworked (hopefully sooner rather than later).  Following that logic, I hope Electricity will start making enemies enter a falling down animation on proc.  I say animation because they tend to be uninterruptable.  That would help the element out quite a bit WITHOUT ADDING BIGGER NUMBERS and expecting that to fix it.

I'd like Shock to stop hitting things behind be for a start.  Screw that one stupid bastard with the meat cleaver, I NEED to stun the death squad I'm aiming at.  I could go for some sort of static charge aspect to the skill, something that could buff subsequent damage or add in another element of control (imagine Shocked being electrostatically attracted to each other!).

Speed could be heavily rebuilt or totally replaced.  Make a 'Frame based off a Cheetah or something and stop trying to suggest this is Volt's speciality.  I'd prefer a mid-range blink skill.  If Speed goes, we can add a passive speed buff to Channeling so that the movie sequence isn't lying (and Channeling suddenly makes more sense).  If Speed stays at LEAST buff the base effect, tone back it's strength scaling slightly, and give it a base 20 seconds duration.  Make it viable from day 1, level 3.

Electric Shield lost something when it lost the projectile hitscan (railgun effect), and it lost something even more when it stopped boosting range on beam weapons.  I loved those aspects of ES.  Riot Shield has been ripped apart often enough that we all can practically recite line and verse in sync.  Making this aspect of Electric Shield viable is crucial.

Discharge would be an easy fix for me.  Just make it castable in the air (gimmie back my Overload Cannonball dammit!), and look at making the move lock things down more reliably but for less time.  Why the bleeding hells does this have a base duration of 20 seconds and Speed just 10?!?  Switch that around and dump the damage cap.  Job's done.  If the damage goes too crazy then we can look at reducing the damage from there.

We know we want change, so we should specify WHAT would work best for us.  Also, I don't care what you think about Volt losing Speed, the thought of it going to a Cheetah 'Frame would at least fit (not to mention how uncomfortably happy the thought of this makes some of you), and blinking around would be at LEAST as fun.

(Cheetah 'Frame with base sprint speed of 1.8 and a passive speed boost based off of how far you've been running with a 3 second window before it disspells.  You want this right meow.)

Edited December 29, 2016 by Cytobel