Zephyr's passive tweaks.

[Lijka]

I am sure this topic has appeared numerous times in the past, yet clearly to no effect. I was hoping the new passives would bring a change also to Zephyr's one, alas this is not the case.

Therefore, please, consider changing Zephyr's passive. The floating limits this frame's movement horribly. I know, I can compensate with her first ability but I should not have to, especially not since it costs energy. I understand that floating fits Zephyr's theme but is more a hinderance than a fun feature.

There is a reason low gravity is considered nightmare condition and yet this one frame has this condition permanently. It severly punishes bulelt jumping (one of the basic tenno moves).

Consider something along the lines of higher defense (a chance to dodge for example) when in air. It would synergize well with her kit. Whatever you do, please change the current, horrible passive.

Edit: It seems, I am the only one thinking her passive is horrible, at least among the people who bothered to comment. Thank you, by the way. Therefore asking for changing the passive would be wrong. However, I would like DE to consider adding an augment mod that gives her normal gravity.

Edit 2: @RunningTree3 suggested, imo, an excellent solution:

4 hours ago, RunningTree3 said:

If low gravity seems to be problematic, perhaps a suggestion would be to make  air-crouch and air-kicks (crouch+forward in midair) be more 'aerodynamic' and thus cause Zephyr to fall at regular gravity, thereby also giving her back more control to perform air-kick knockdowns that other frames get to do -- while still retaining the "air slide" (crouch+forward+aimglide)

That said, I am personally comfortable adjusting to Zephyr's rhythm; but would definitely support widening the range of options -- though preferably not by augment mod.

Edited July 2, 2016 by Lijka

[Reifnir]

Zephyr needs a rework anyway. 

Her 1 and 2 are useless, 3 is somewhat unreliable and 4 is weak and clutters the screen to much.

Also, on the idea of her passive - being a wind frame, her bullet jumps should be what her current 1 is - a long-distance move plus (maybe) blast damage on contact, similar to Lightning Dash/Firewalker/Toxic Flight. 

[Eschenholz]

Zephyr is my most played frame and I love her passive, more than any of her active abilities outside of Jet Stream augmented Turbulence.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Eh-heh, you'd be surprised actually; I've been to dozens of re-work threads and not one person wants to change her passive, instead they want to buff it so it applies to the parkour system too.

Zephyr's passive makes her one of the most mobile frames in the game, yes it's annoying if you hit the top of the door instead of go through it, but that doesn't change the fact that for any regular run she can pretty much keep up with a speeding Volt due to her not touching the ground as much, and being able to steer in the air to get past obstacles that other frames have to parkour around.

Low gravity is considered a nightmare mode status for other frames because they lack Zephyr's steering ability in the air, they literally can't move left and right, or back, during low grav, only slide, aim glide or use the double/bullet jump. Parkour 2.0 is fairly recent, Zephyr isn't, her passive made her the perfect speed run frame, especially in nightmare modes where her Turbulence compensated for the lack of shields. Even with parkour, if you've used your second air jump (bullet or otherwise) already, that's it, you're stuck moving in the same direction until you land, and if you're heading over a pit good luck, have fun.

Now I've already said, and I won't deny, that when you're too high off the ground and want to be on terra firma again, low grav is pretty annoying. But compare that to Atlas' passive, where he can't be knocked down if he's standing on the ground, a powerful bonus, right? Except that if he wants to parkour in a mission his ability is null and void. Similar trade. You get control in the air but can't land early.

The only change that anyone I've ever seen mention about Zephyr's passive is that maybe, maybe, crouching with no momentum should make you drop faster instead of slide. That's about it.

[LuckyCharm]

I actually love zephyrs passive since it makes her unique. Only thing about zephy i'd change would be divebomb since you don't really need a way to plummet when you can just groundslam for more damage.  If I were to change her passive though.. It'd be to just.. let her fly like wukong. Purely because that's kind of her thing.

[ObviousLee]

Zephyr needs a rework, but her passive is beautiful. It helps her utilize the parkour system better than any other frame. If you wanna go fast mod for speed. 

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

6 hours ago, Reifnir said:

Zephyr needs a rework anyway. 

Her 1 and 2 are useless, 3 is somewhat unreliable and 4 is weak and clutters the screen to much.

If you believe that then perhaps your strategy with her needs a rework.

[Reifnir]

1 hour ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

If you believe that then perhaps your strategy with her needs a rework.

What strategy? Tail Wind is just a glorified, energy-consuming bullet jump now that bullet jumps are a thing, and her nose dive is a copy of Jat Kittag slam with less damage. Most of the times when I run Zephyr I use her 3 and very occasionally - 4, and that's it. Not a good kit, not in my book, at least.

 

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

37 minutes ago, Reifnir said:

What strategy? Tail Wind is just a glorified, energy-consuming bullet jump now that bullet jumps are a thing, and her nose dive is a copy of Jat Kittag slam with less damage. Most of the times when I run Zephyr I use her 3 and very occasionally - 4, and that's it. Not a good kit, not in my book, at least.

 

Zephyr's kit dominates with AoE weapons used in the air. 

Tailwind launches faster and higher than bullet jump, knockdown close enemies and allows travel through the air to the next set of enemies in which you would attack from a safer position. And every Zephyr player knows that her safest position is above her enemies. I'd love to elaborate but there are so many threads in which this was discussed. I'm getting tired of seeing it. 

Yes Zephyr needs proper scaling with her moveset, but the kit is fine. I dont mind people requesting 2 or 4 tweaks but they're ultimately not bad moves, just lack proper scaling.

Edited June 29, 2016 by (PS4)RenovaKunumaru

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, Reifnir said:

What strategy? Tail Wind is just a glorified, energy-consuming bullet jump now that bullet jumps are a thing, and her nose dive is a copy of Jat Kittag slam with less damage. Most of the times when I run Zephyr I use her 3 and very occasionally - 4, and that's it. Not a good kit, not in my book, at least.

Gotta agree with RenovaKunamaru on this one here, I've been playing her for literally years now (a full two of them, go me!), and even after Parkour 2.0 came out, Zephyr's Tailwind is still useful. Actually... in some cases it's far more useful.

I definitely want to point out that Dive Bomb came first. Jat Kittag was released in the same update and did not do the same amount of AoE that Dive Bomb did, it was buffed later, and now does as much as Dive Bomb, but it doesn't cost energy, Zephyr got ripped, man, so unfair.

Parkour is great and all, don't get me wrong, and I did read and do understand your view on her kit overall, I'm just going to point out that her kit is actually capable of being pretty great if you use it actively.

Spoiler

 

For example, simply dropping on a Heavy Impact will turn Dive Bomb into a consistent AoE CC that you can pull off from any height quicker than the Jat Kittag and frees you up to use any other kind of melee you like. I use it all the time when I'm running solo as my go-to 'oh crap!' move.

Tailwind is your third jump in parkour, ties in beautifully with movement, I can guarantee you that anywhere you can get with parkour Zephyr can get there faster and in less moves. It's also your fourth, fifth and sixth jump in the air. A re-castable bullet jump that you don't need to land anywhere to repeat.

And I've never once found Turbulence to be unreliable, as long as you know what the glitch is that DE have been trying to stomp out for 2 years and not managed yet (despite about 8 updates to how the ability works). The reduction across the board is a little over 98% accuracy to hit-scan weapons and total redirection of projectile weapons, so every enemy with a hitscan weapon, no matter the level, has only about 2% chance of hitting you, and nothing else fired at you will get you. The mechanics of this are what can lead people to think it's unreliable. First, the projectiles have to sink into the area a little way to be redirected, things like bombard rockets are bad because if they get redirected too close to you, the detonation when they hit floors or walls can still blast you. And if you happen to be running fast through a level, this can look like you just ate a rocket even with your ability up. Second, the hitscan weapons are a little more... technical. These get redirected so the enemy is shooting about a meter or so above Zephyr's head, instead of straight at her, this is pretty much fine if anything is within a few meters of her, doesn't matter much, but if the enemies are at range, this creates a flat ceiling of 'tunnels' through the turbulence radius that you can jump up into and you'll get hit before the ability can re-adjust the aim.

As long as you know these things happen, aware that AoE can still get you and that enemies at range are laying a trap ceiling for you to jump into, you can pretty much flip the bird (see what I did there?) to every gun-toting enemy in the game for as long as you like. Any difficulty level.

 

She definitely needs that re-work, there's some simple additions, or changes, to her kit that would bring it up to current game standard. I'm really disappointed with her Tornado as it stands and that definitely needs the love. And if they could combine Tailwind and Dive Bomb into her 1st slot, that would free up space for a better 2, without losing any of her existing abilities.

Meh, dreams...

[Lijka]

5 hours ago, ObviousLee said:

Zephyr needs a rework, but her passive is beautiful. It helps her utilize the parkour system better than any other frame. If you wanna go fast mod for speed. 

I would like you to show me how. No irony, I am genuinely curious because as much as I otherwise enjoy Zephyr, the low gravity and how slow it makes her (if I don't use first skill) is a real deterrent for me. She feels clunky and simply slow. I'd like to be shown otherwise.

[1tsyB1tsyN1nj4]

2 hours ago, Lijka said:

I would like you to show me how. No irony, I am genuinely curious because as much as I otherwise enjoy Zephyr, the low gravity and how slow it makes her (if I don't use first skill) is a real deterrent for me. She feels clunky and simply slow. I'd like to be shown otherwise.

If anything, if they removed the slow and left her with low Gravity to jump higher and further, that would be nice

[LuckyCharm]

7 hours ago, Lijka said:

I would like you to show me how. No irony, I am genuinely curious because as much as I otherwise enjoy Zephyr, the low gravity and how slow it makes her (if I don't use first skill) is a real deterrent for me. She feels clunky and simply slow. I'd like to be shown otherwise.

It does make her a god at aim-gliding though. And perhaps try dropping an exilus mod on her to improve aim glide and you may enjoy being able to shoot things from in the air

[Misgenesis]

My only gripe with it is that it doesnt feel like a passive because its not a % stat. Otherwise its what makes Zephyr an enjoyable alternative to normal grounded gameplay.

Couple her with the extended aim glide time mod and pretend youre an AC-130 with Staticor.

[Azzaruth]

29 minutes ago, LuckyCharm said:

It does make her a god at aim-gliding though. And perhaps try dropping an exilus mod on her to improve aim glide and you may enjoy being able to shoot things from in the air

Yep, you can do this, and it is a blast.

 

But really, her passive is what makes Zephyr one of the better frames. Sure the slow fall has a few annoyances, but with high efficiency, dive bomb, or using ground slams work just fine. And I'd say the benefits greatly outweigh the problems it causes, especially since they can be worked around easily.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

1 hour ago, Esorono said:

Yep, you can do this, and it is a blast.

 

But really, her passive is what makes Zephyr one of the better frames. Sure the slow fall has a few annoyances, but with high efficiency, dive bomb, or using ground slams work just fine. And I'd say the benefits greatly outweigh the problems it causes, especially since they can be worked around easily.

If the person in the video had turbulence active his Kulstar would have traveled faster, assuming the Augment is on, and would have required less leading to targets.

Also player could have just used turbulence while grounded to return back to the air instead of bullet jumping and it would have offered a better height advantage. 

To add on to the last point, Tailwind can be cast downward to keep forward momentum, and shoot as well to return yourself to the ground without the delay using a dive-bomb  has.

[Reifnir]

1 hour ago, Esorono said:

Yep, you can do this, and it is a blast.

Sorry to break this for you, but this Hieracon run is a rather pathetic sight.

First of all, you're obviously losing extractors - even to Infested. Judging by the numbers you either lost one at the last second or lost several already. Not good. Your team mate is bleeding out while you're jumping airborne - so apparently fooling around looking awesome is not contributing that much to the team after all. You're picking out single infested enemies - but a larger herd will take your extractors apart long before you carpet-bomb them out of existence. 

So yeah, Zephyr's kit (1 and 2, specifically) allows her to wobble in the air, wasting energy on not really participating in battle. Not much of a blast, it seems. Not to mention, I've seen Korean (or was in Chinese?) MMOs do a better job at "prancing in the air" - https://youtu.be/JNum4ZaiwSU?t=32s

 

Edited June 30, 2016 by Reifnir

[Azzaruth]

7 minutes ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

If the person in the video had turbulence active his Kulstar would have traveled faster, assuming the Augment is on, and would have required less leading to targets.

Also player could have just used turbulence while grounded to return back to the air instead of bullet jumping and it would have offered a better height advantage. 

To add on to the last point, Tailwind can be cast downward to keep forward momentum, and shoot as well to return yourself to the ground without the delay using a dive-bomb  has.

It was me, and there was no room to add the turbulence augment on it. That build is absurdly tight, and even if I did, the build itself only has 45% strength for it to work, and also the duration on that build makes turbulence not worth casting as it will last about 7 seconds.

4 minutes ago, Reifnir said:

Sorry to break this for you, but this Hieracon run is a rather pathetic sight.

First of all, you're obviously losing extractors - even to Infested. Judging by the numbers you either lost one at the last second or lost several already. Not good. Your team mate is bleeding out while you're jumping airborne - so apparently fooling around looking awesome is not contributing that much to the team after all. You're picking out single infested enemies - but a larger herd will take your extractors apart long before you carpet-bomb them out of existence. 

So yeah, Zephyr's kit (1 and 2, specifically) allows her to wobble in the air, wasting energy on not really participating in battle. Not much of a blast, it seems. Not to mention, I've seen Korean (or was in Chinese?) MMOs do a better job at "prancing in the air" - https://youtu.be/JNum4ZaiwSU?t=32s

 

It was a fairly bad run, people were everywhere, trying activate every single extractor that showed up, on multiple occasions, I had to defend two extractors simultaneously. But it did actually contribute, at least in damage and kills where I was doing about 45% of the damage if I remember correctly for that run. 

Edited June 30, 2016 by Esorono

[Reifnir]

12 minutes ago, Esorono said:

It was a fairly bad run, people were everywhere, trying activate every single extractor that showed up, on multiple occasions, I had to defend two extractors simultaneously. But it did actually contribute, at least in damage and kills where I was doing about 45% of the damage if I remember correctly for that run. 

That's kinda the problem - Zephyr *could* be an amazing, immensely mobile CC frame... But as it stands now, she only shines in scenarios where she only has to fend for herself. Turbulence is not much help to others unless they hug you (and not too impressive even then), tornadoes tend to work as whimsical and less-reliable versions of Vauban's Vortex, and 1/2... Well, you can rely on them to get *you* out of tight place - and not much else. Maybe Tailwind should severely ragdoll everything below it in its wake. Maybe divebomb should pull the enemies in from a 30+ meter range and THEN scatter them in a violent outburst - but at any rate, something needs to be done to Zephyr to turn her from a "fun to fool around" frame into "fun to be powerful and mobile" one. 

[ZodiacShinryu]

In a world where, Chroma's passive is the main feature of his powers. I feel Zephyr's should be the least of anyone's concern especially when her passive synergizes so well with her playstyle. I'm more rather to say that the game's map designs (that said the moon tileset was not a terrible design) were not ready for Zephyr than her having a poor passive.

[Azzaruth]

18 minutes ago, Reifnir said:

That's kinda the problem - Zephyr *could* be an amazing, immensely mobile CC frame... But as it stands now, she only shines in scenarios where she only has to fend for herself. Turbulence is not much help to others unless they hug you (and not too impressive even then), tornadoes tend to work as whimsical and less-reliable versions of Vauban's Vortex, and 1/2... Well, you can rely on them to get *you* out of tight place - and not much else. Maybe Tailwind should severely ragdoll everything below it in its wake. Maybe divebomb should pull the enemies in from a 30+ meter range and THEN scatter them in a violent outburst - but at any rate, something needs to be done to Zephyr to turn her from a "fun to fool around" frame into "fun to be powerful and mobile" one. 

If you sacrifice a bit of shielding and health you'd have room to divebomb vortex which does pretty much what you described when you add range to it, I have experimented around with it and it does provide decent mob positioning on defense maps. But the problem is, if you want to build a Jet Stream Zephyr build, then it pretty much locks out a Divebomb Vortex Zephyr build. An aerial build can be used with divebomb vortex Zephyr however as you only need to build efficiency and range for that build which also provides pretty good mobility ability at the cost of your turbulence lasting about 17 seconds at a time. Zephyr's main problem is that while she can do a lot, she requires a huge stat spread to utilize her strengths and she can't use them all at the same time, and the builds require many conflicting polarities. Which means having a lot of Zephyrs to use all the builds she can use.

But a max range, high duration, durability, divebomb vortex build is actually quite decent for defenses, as it relieves pressure from Snowglobe, and can ragdoll enemies out. Also tornado...'helps' I suppose. But I'll be honest, it would be infinitely more helpful if you could tell it where to spawn or if it spawned at you and slowly moved away in the direction you casted.

[Reifnir]

15 minutes ago, Esorono said:

But a max range, high duration, durability, divebomb vortex build is actually quite decent for defenses

It should be core functionality, not a Syndicate Augment, tbh. And yes, Zephyr needing every stat is a problem as well. 

[Azzaruth]

Just now, Reifnir said:

It should be core functionality, not a Syndicate Augment, tbh. And yes, Zephyr needing every stat is a problem as well. 

I'd say the same for a large amount of syndicate augments honestly, a lot of skills just aren't all that amazing without the augments boosting them. But other than it taking up a mod slot and pretty much needing the complete opposite type of build than a jet stream build, it's really not all that bad.

[jmthebigman]

Zephrys passive is fine as it is.

her 1 could use a rework since the new parkour system with bullet jump.

her 2 needs some synergy rework. Heavy Impact + Divebomb + Melee slam should combo

her 3 is fine, especially with the augment. I run this 24/7 <3

her ultimate is a nice CC but could probably use a buff in DMG.

 

 

Do note I said synergy rework with her 2 and not a complete rework like with her 1.

[Birdframe_Prime]

3 minutes ago, Reifnir said:

It should be core functionality, not a Syndicate Augment, tbh. And yes, Zephyr needing every stat is a problem as well. 

I'd say that 'needing every stat' is exactly what DE has been working for in their warframes. Min-maxing has been part of warframe since the Corrupted mods were released, and many skills benefit from negative numbers rather than positive, like speed nova.

But since the recent reworks, the minor ones on frames like Ember and Frost, or the major ones on Saryn, Excal, Mag and Volt, we've seen a trend where the builds make min-maxing a little more risky.

Every one of those frames benefits from all four stats, losing any of them is tricky. Take Saryn, if you want to get the most out of her forced synergy abilities, the only stat you can justifiably cripple is actually her efficiency, because range, power and duration are so important to her. Or Mag, since she benefits form all the stats too, it's hard to find a build that gets the 'most' out of her kit, but after testing you can actually drop some duration so that her magnetise detonates more often and deals more damage overall to targets, even if you need to cast it more often.

All of the reworks we've seen so far introduce sets of abilities that need all four stats, and deciding which to drop for min-maxing is that much more challenging, but can net better rewards than the old versions of the frames did. Zephyr needing all four is just par for the course, not a problem.