Ember's Passive - A Constructive Feedback + potential rework

[TwonkeyKong]

Please Note:
This should be a serious and constructive thread about Ember, and Ember only.
So please keep all the 'this is BS' or 'other frames deserve it more' answers out of here.
At the end of the day a well reasoned and articulated idea/ suggestion is the most usefull feedback we can give the developers to improve the game.
Also please keep in mind that english is not my native language, so there might be some issues with the text ;)
Thank you very much. <3

 

Heyo fellow Tenno,

 

when it was announced that all Warframes will get their passives in U18.13 I was pretty hyped, since my alltime favourite warframe Ember had no passive at this point.
The concept of Ember's ignition passive seemed cool, but sadly there came many issues with it, regarding its usefullness and accessability against various factions.

But i wanted to get my hand on it first before complaining, so I spend the last couple days playing around with Ember and her passive, to determine if her passive is too dangerous or too restricting to use.
And at the end I came to the conclusion that her passive is, while thematicly cool, not fitting her playstyle.

Her current passive:
Any time Ember suffers a Heat proc, she gains 35% Power Strength and regenerates 10 points of Energy for every second she is ablaze.

 

While i like the idea, of Ember becoming more powerfull when she is ablaze herself, the current version brings up a lot of problems, like that you are completly dependent on enemies to set you on fire (and currently there are 4 enemytypes that can even proc heat, from which 3 are grineer units) and the fact that you are most likely already dead before you can get any use out of her passive, since she is neither a tank nor has a way to reduce incoming damage.
So the only 'effective' way to get some use out of her passive is to use self damaging weapons, which limits build variety alot.

So i came up with some suggestions / a reworked passive which uses the current concept, but gives the player the option to use Embers passive without dying or restricting you to use a specific weapon.
 

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In detail:

The basic idea is that as she is spamming her abilities, she starts to build up heat, which triggers several buffs/etc. But beware if you get too hot ;D
her Passive is split into 2 parts, one part which can be triggered by enemies (and yourself if you use selfdamage) and the second part which you can build up anytime when done correctly (and inflicting self damage for her first passive if wanted by the player)

1st part of her passive:
When Ember receives a Heat proc, she regenerates 5 Energy every second for the duration of the proc. This works even if channeled abilities like her WoF is active.
Had to decrease the energy gain a little but you'll see why soon^tm

2nd part of her passive:
Ember has a heat counter (0% - 100% shown in the top right where all buffs are), which decreases by 1% every second and starts out at 0% when entering the mission.
When casting an ability, Ember generates a percentage of heat, depending on the ability she casts.
> Fireball adds 5%
> Accelerant adds 10%
> Fireblast adds 15%
> WoF adds 20% on cast and it slows down the loss of heat by 50% (thus 1% heat decreases every 2 seconds)

While her Heat is 60% or higher Ember gets an additional +35% powerstrengh boost. + a little visual fiery effect/glow/etc on her body (maybe like a less extreme version of Flame Repellent).

Upon reaching 100% heat Ember sets herself on fire with a 10s heat proc which deals her total powerstrengh/10 every second and refreshes as long as she is still on 100% heat. (keep in mind that you have +35% powerstrengh at this point too)

The Proc is unlikly to kill you, but it will hurt when you dont pay attention and keep it running for too long.
This is where the player comes into play, because you can choose how far you want to go. I if you want to play safe you can go up to 60%-80% without having to worry about setting yourself on fire.
But if you want to go full flamethrower-mode, you can continue spamming abilities and set the room on fire. Her passive will support you with giving you more energy (because of the fireproc) but you have to keep an eye on your health, so its a high risk - high reward play if you keep the 100% without cooling down at some point.

*Please keep in mind that these stats are placeholders and are possibly not balanced enough, there are only there to visualize the whole idea.

 

 

 

 

If you have any Ideas/ Suggestions/ feedback PLEASE leave them here,
and remember to keep flaming and raging out, because it helps no one.
Thank you very much.

Have a nice day :)

 

ChubbysCurryMcToastKing

 

 

Edited August 3, 2016 by ChubbysCurryMcToastKing

[DrBorris]

I hate it when I can't find things that are majorly wrong with concepts, it makes it really hard to comment, +1 OP.

 

Edit: I came up with something! I think that EVERY frame should have some sort of complex passive like Volt's (or like this), sure it will take some time but I would much rather wait than have  half as'd passives. Just keep the current passives got now and rework them as DE gets time.

Edited May 31, 2016 by DrBorris

[TwonkeyKong]

40 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

Edit: I came up with something! I think that EVERY frame should have some sort of complex passive like Volt's (or like this), sure it will take some time but I would much rather wait than have  half as'd passives. Just keep the current passives got now and rework them as DE gets time.

good to hear that I am not the only one who thinks so.

A passive should work on every fraction equally good, or at least help the frame out with problems his kit of abilities creates for him

[RunningTree3]

5 hours ago, ChubbysCurryMcToastKing said:

While i like the idea, of Ember becoming more powerfull when she is ablaze herself, the current version brings up a lot of problems, like that you are completly dependent on enemies to set you on fire (and currently there are 4 enemytypes that can even proc heat, from which 3 are grineer units) and the fact that you are most likely already dead before you can get any use out of her passive, since she is neither a tank nor has a way to reduce incoming damage.

Ember can still gain energy in the traditional manner (orbs); there is nothing preventing her from doing so. The passive is a bonus. I would consider it her second wind, a reward-for-risk for surviving the fire proc (a full duration of one grants 60 energy total).

That said, I agree that there is very little way for Ember herself alone to survive a heat proc, or much other damage at all. This is actually a problem with many fragile frames altogether. But that does not make the problem the Passive ability itself. I know this thread is meant to look at Ember's passive only, but I do believe identifying underlying issues can be relevant, and whether a Passive ability can band-aid over this or not.

Some considerations for Passive ability though:

* There has often been mentions of Flame Repellent of some level for Ember, either for all Heat damage, or for only the damage caused by a Heat proc. (The related discussion on Heat immunity however may be taking it too far)

*  

Overheat also used to exist. The damage reduction was for all damage sources; and the ability included a Heat damage aura at melee range. These two additional effects, or variations thereof, activated only during Ember receiving Heat proc, could possibly be a useful addition to her Passive.

* And while not a Passive per se, I believe I have heard suggestions along the lines of Accelerant or any other of Ember's abilities being able to dispel a Heat proc on cast as a Ability Mechanic.

 

Regarding the Power Strength buff during Heat proc, I am of the opinion that Passives need to affect more than just a frame's abilities. I would rather this be a Fire damage buff to all attacks including powers (similar mechanic to Fireball Frenzy).

 

I also like the idea in principle by @ChubbysCurryMcToastKing

for manually overheating Ember, particularly given that Accelerent's giving faster casting speed suggests more frequent use of abilities.

Edited May 31, 2016 by RunningTree3
Added feedback on P.Str buff

[onieyez]

more damage is nice, but ember kinda sucks at high level anyways, that's why my ember only has about 440 damage on WOF since more range is a lot better than more damage. by the time you get to your target they will probably be dead or just CC.

what would be more useful of a passive is some utility like +% amount of speed on parkour ability after casting a spell

or ground burns when spending energy increasing movement speed when walking over fire.

[Berzerkir]

As a person who instantly went out of his way to build ember two years ago, I would be elated if this was her passive. Bonus points if RunningTree3's suggestion was also involved. the vast majority of other frames have something which constitutes damage reduction and accelerant's stun with fire procs doesn't cut it in high lvl content. Take your +1's.

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

Embers Accelerant and Fire blast abilities should disperse fire procs dealt to Ember, maybe even adding damage taken to the attack. 

Fire ball and World on fire should channel flame procs into her attacks. You still burn, but don't take as much damage, or zero damage. Your sheilds just don't recharge because you are on Fire....

Does that work?

[Djego27]

On 31.5.2016 at 6:47 AM, onieyez said:

more damage is nice, but ember kinda sucks at high level anyways, that's why my ember only has about 440 damage on WOF since more range is a lot better than more damage. by the time you get to your target they will probably be dead or just CC.

It is more that you just chose to play the frame in a much more limited way that what is actually possible with accelerant and combining fire damage with certain status effects or head shot crit mechanics. While the damage output of Ember is a good amount less broken then chroma, banshee or mirrage can throw out, it is certainly sufficient to deal with L100 armored stuff in sortis.

As for the passive idea:

It would be nice since it encourages more then just  press 4 for WoF when it comes to play Ember. However the energy replenishment would be to easy to abuse on more refined Ember builds and 23.5-28 damage per second is trivial to shrug off when the game requires you recover from over 1k+ damage dealt in single hits within seconds to stay alive at  high levels.

You could add a cool down to it so it only triggers every 120s or so but you have to take into account that this feature will never be a thing for a newer player(since he can not spam abilities enught nor does he have tools to take that damage so easy) while it is fairly redundant for older players with energy restores or just permanently tanking the self damage do deal more damage.

In the end the extra power strength would be reason enught to encourage to use more then just WoF however on the flip side you probably always be at 100% if you play higher levels, simply because of the accelerant spam, so accelerant should probably be dropped to 5% and fireball should have 10%.

Edited August 1, 2016 by Djego27

[Deidaku]

This is interesting

But I feel like the drawback of her passive could kill her extremely quickly in High level missions like sorties

[DeadScream]

I love your concept, kinda makes me think about Hawken's Incinerator class mech. 

 

 

Edit : how about Accelerant being able to cool down instead of heat up ? Just a random idea thrown here, I don't feel sure about it

Edited August 3, 2016 by DeadScream

[Erl-King]

Quick Thinking and you will get permaburning Ember, other from that I really like concept, but I am afraid that it could be too complicated for passive.

Simplified idea: Each power cast activate 5 second buff +10% Power Strength, +10% Energy efficiency, that can stack up to 3 times.