Volt Feedback And Rework Suggestion

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Volt is my main and I've polarized it once and will probably do so again after maxing the few remaining frames.  This is coming from someone who's been using him from the start (I chose him as my starter frame several months ago).

 

What is he now?

 

Right now, what is Volt and what is he supposed to be?  He's supposed to be a caster that offers an alternative to gunplay.  Is this true?  Let us investigate.

 

-Shock: deals light electrical damage to enemies and can chain, but chaining reportedly reduces the damage taken by each enemy.  Due to electrical damage, this is effectively worthless against Infested and even against Corpus is a very paltry amount of damage.  Does this contribute to being a potent alternative to gunplay?  No, not really.

 

-Speed: vastly increase movement speed for a duration.  Very useful utility, but doesn't really offer an alternative to gunplay.  Just makes him able to escape easier, unless you consider rushing that alternative, but I don't find that acceptable.

 

-Electric Shield: puts up a shield that alters damage type (supposedly it changes Normal to Electrical and Laser to AP), blocks enemy fire, and changes laser projectiles into hitscan.  The ability is also buggy when you're not the host.  Does this contribute to being an alternative to gunplay?  No.  In fact, it encourages gunplay.

 

-Overload: deals moderate electrical damage from self and from overhead lights.  At one point, this was the most powerful ability in the game, daisy-chaining from room-to-room and killing everything.  Luckily it got nerfed.  This will not reliably kill high-level Grineer and is obviously not a wise choice against Infested Ancients.  Does this contribute to Volt being a potent alternative to gunplay?  It certainly helps, but is less powerful than other caster ultimates.

 

Volt isn't a caster.  He isn't a potent alternative to gunplay as advertised.  What is he?  He's a clunky shield-tank that is only reliable against one faction.  I've made countless suggestions to him, but over time, I've become convinced that his kit is simply clunky and doesn't mesh with his intended role.  Right now, the only real strategy with him is to run in and let your shields tank damage until you get in the middle of enemies and hit [4].  Move to the next room and repeat.  On defense maps he's not useful because Overload doesn't work well more than once and on the outdoor maps, there aren't nearby lights in many cases.  Let's just say there's a reason he got stuck in the lower tier in the recent thread.

 

 

How do we make him what he should be?

 

This is the interesting part.  I'm very much open to suggestions here, but honestly I think he needs a rework.  His abilities, while they can be fun, just don't mesh well.  I know this isn't a problem specific to Volt, but in a frame so situational to begin with, abilities which make each other unnecessary (if you use speed, why are you using Shield and if you use Overload, why are you shielding from dead enemies?) aren't good things.  As such I propose what can be found below.  

 

What we should go back to again and again is his primary point: being a potent alternative to gunplay.  There is no frame that occupies that niche at the moment and I believe that Volt can be made to fill that niche while still being a fun frame to play for those who already use him.  I know some people are bound to say "but ability X is so much fun right now!"  I know.  But it doesn't mesh.  Volt isn't a cohesive entity right now.  He's in a "balanced" state, but it's ineffective because the kit itself doesn't work with itself.  Things contradict.  Now, you might argue that those contradictions offer options, but you don't need them.  Speed for instance allows you to relocate extremely quickly, outperforming a shield in all cases except Corpus bosses which is a poor reason to keep an ability.

 

Volt 2.0

 

Stats

-Health: 75 (225)

-Armor: 10

-Shields: 100 (400)

-Energy: 150 (250)

-Shield Regen: 22

-Sprint: 1.2

-Polarities: 4x =, 1x V, 1x ~

 

-Chain Lightning [10 energy]: deals {100/200/250/300} electrical damage to an enemy and may chain to a maximum distance (including initial distance to target) of {20/30/40/50} meters where the distance counts triple after the initial hit to the target.  As an example, at rank 1, you could hit an enemy 10 meters away and that could chain to an enemy up to 3.33 meters away because that 3.33 meters gets tripled for the distance cap, thus the total "distance" is 10+3*3.33.  Lightning always chains to the nearest enemy from the perspective of any "node" in the chain, meaning that it can fork.  Animation is effectively instant, allowing it to be spammed.

 

-Energize [25 energy]: increases all movement speed by 50%, increase melee rate by 30%, and all electrical dealt by Volt or his weapons for the duration is increased by {10/15/20/25}%  Lasts {4/5/6/7} seconds.

 

-Ionize [50 energy]: Volt sends out a burst of energy that causes all enemies within {10/15/20/25} meters to take {20/23/26/29/32}% additional electrical damage from all sources and elements, runs the electrocute animation on enemies for 0.5 seconds upon cast, and reduces the time taken for shields of allies to begin regenerating by 40%.

 

-Overload [100 energy]: deals 800 electrical damage to enemies within {20/30/40/50} meters and each enemy hit deals an additional {100/150/200/250} damage to enemies within {3/4/5/6} meters of the afflicted enemy.  Enemies are electrocuted for 2 seconds, and if an enemy is struck by more than one secondary AoE, the damage on all additional secondary AoE's is halved.  An enemy may not be struck by more than three secondary AoE's.  Maximum damage then is 1300.

 

Equipment Interaction

-Focus: increases all flat and percent damage dealt

-Streamline: increases efficiency of all abilities

-Continuity: increases duration of Energize, but does not increase duration of electrocution of any abilities

-Stretch: increases all ranges

-Storm Helmet: same as Focus

 

Volt 2.0 Explanation

 

Now, as you'll see, Electric Shield is gone (IMO, Volt's current shield-tank nature and shield ability ought to actually be moved over to some new gun-based frame where they'd fit more).  The new Volt instead focuses on being an offensive mage.  He has defensive capacities through Ionize which allows him to survive more sustained damage (as well as helping the whole team) and what used to be Speed got rolled into a general steroid: Energize.  Volt also has reduced defensive characteristics, forcing him into a true mage roll: kill via AoE or be killed.  By using Ionize and Energize, Volt can drastically increase the damage enemies take from allies.  Because each ability has complexity rolled into it, this provides him with intrinsic flexibility and encourages skill diversification.  "Shock" even becomes useful by becoming a spammable AoE that deals decent damage by becoming Chain Lightning.

 

Obviously, numbers can be nitpicked, but the changes proposed here do make Volt a potent alternative to gunplay.  He becomes a true lightning caster.  He is also a bit of a glass cannon, meaning that you must kill your enemies rapidly or face death yourself.  Volt's [1] actually becomes something other than just a weaker Tesla.  Ionize changes the battle, giving your team a moment of reprieve and lets you deal more damage.  Energize allows Volt to relocate and deal extra damage for the duration. Overload becomes more reliable and scales with the presence of enemies rather than the presence of arbitrary light fixtures which vary by map and make Volt ineffective on defense missions.

 

Conclusion

 

Hopefully this should cement Volt's role as a caster and open up the concept of a shield-tank as a possibility for a future frame.  Once again, I didn't arrive at the decision that Volt needs a rework briefly.  I've made several feedback and testing threads in which I suggested more minor things.  Ultimately though, I simply came to the conclusion that his kit is simply just clunky and by the nature of his abilities, he cannot be made to accomplish the intended goal of being a preeminent caster.  I love Volt and have spent 85 hours as him.  The problem is that I've discovered more and more with time is I love the *idea* of Volt, but not how he actually is.  Hopefully the changes I've suggested help Volt along the path to being a better warframe and also increase his appeal without being intrinsically OP (as said, numbers can be argued ad absurdum).

 

I know some may like Volt the way he is, but his skills are contradictory, his kit is clunky, and he does not fulfill his intended role.

 

Special Thanks

 

-Aeriax: run speed 1.0->1.2

-Amystirja: Shock -> Chain Lightning

 

Changelog

 

6-19 10:35 EDT: nerfed damage on Overload and Chain Lightning

Edited June 24, 2013 by Volt_Cruelerz

[austinrelis]

Very nice and thought out post, but I like my volt the way he is now.

 

Just change his 1 skill. It is horrendous.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Very nice and thought out post, but I like my volt the way he is now.

 

Just change his 1 skill. It is horrendous.

 

 

I know some may like Volt the way he is, but his skills are contradictory, his kit is clunky, and he does not fulfill his intended role.

[Lady_Khaos]

I love this. I never use my shield anymore because I feel like that mod slot could be better filled. And Shock is underpowered. And I was just wondering yesterday why Speed doesn't improve attack speed as well.

[BinoAl]

Honestly, the only reason I ever use volt is for speed. I use speed, continuity, and rush to quickly get to a boss. My weapons are generally powerful enough to not rely on the frame. I would love to see it get a rework. Currently, it's not even great vs corpus

[fatpig84]

Shock needs to be Chain shock with added effect.

 

Shock

25 Energy.

Deal 200/300/400/500 Electrical damage.

Bounces 2/4/6/8 targets

Ignore enemies resistance

Edited June 19, 2013 by fatpig84

[Lady_Khaos]

Shock needs to be Chain shock with added effect.

 

Shock

25 Energy.

Deal 200/300/400/500 Electrical damage.

Bounces 2/4/6/8 targets

Ignore enemies resistance

 

If Shock ignored resistance then it would go from being Corpus strong to nuking everything, including Ancients. Highly unlikely that would ever happen.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Shock needs to be Chain shock with added effect.

 

Shock

25 Energy.

Deal 200/300/400/500 Electrical damage.

Bounces 2/4/6/8 targets

Ignore enemies resistance

If that was the case, no one would ever do anything else.

[Aeriax]

As someone else who mains Volt, but is ok with his current state:

 

These are still excellent changes, and I'd be quite glad to see them happen. What I might do also though is increase Volt's speed there from 1.0 to 1.2 or even 1.3. That'd likely make speed/energize even more effective.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

As someone else who mains Volt, but is ok with his current state:

 

These are still excellent changes, and I'd be quite glad to see them happen. What I might do also though is increase Volt's speed there from 1.0 to 1.2 or even 1.3. That'd likely make speed/energize even more effective.

I like that idea.  I'll update the OP.

[Amistyrja]

Suggestion: Change Shock to Chain Lightning.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Suggestion: Change Shock to Chain Lightning.

Fair enough.  Would be more descriptive anyways.  Will change.

[Jhakoon]

i adore that volt2.0 o_O

right now i use speed and overload only, anything else is either slightly misplaced on that frame or just useless.

ever tried to zap infested or fending them with your shield?

[Nightsifter]

Shock damage is to weak(((( 1st skill of any warframe much stronger than volt's shock((((

[abaddun]

I must point out, and I know you made a point about nit picking, but your proposition for overload is capable of reaching ludicrous levels of damage, even on single targets with a max focus and ionize for a whopping 62% increase in damage for 1296 per minion. But then we will factor in the secondary blasts, which I must point out you have set no cap, and apply that in addition to the main damage dealt. Take for example your average mob, 6 targets clustered together, with another  set some distance away out of range of the first cluster's secondary blasts. IF, those 6 where all within 6 metres of one another, then your ultimate will inflict up to 3564 damage with alterations from enemy resistance. Now I recognise this ability (and volt in general) is ineffective against infested and only mediocre against grineer, however it is exceptional against corpus, with that damage being doubled.  

[Reichmar]

I like what you did with the skills, OP. They need to be balanced in terms of damage, but the ideas are solid.

 

If volt is intended to be an "alternative to gunplay" and a "caster", these abilities sound like a perfect fit.

[fatpig84]

If Shock ignored resistance then it would go from being Corpus strong to nuking everything, including Ancients. Highly unlikely that would ever happen.

 

 

If that was the case, no one would ever do anything else.

 

 

Slash dash.

Deals 500 damage.

Deals 3x damage vs light infested and MoAs.

Deals unlimited targets in range.

 

Shuriken

Deals 500 armor ignore damage x2 

Homing

Headshots for double damage.

3x damage vs light infested (poor phorid)

Limited puncture.

 

 

Always look at the strongest abilities and take it from there.

Edited June 19, 2013 by fatpig84

[Volt_Cruelerz]

I must point out, and I know you made a point about nit picking, but your proposition for overload is capable of reaching ludicrous levels of damage, even on single targets with a max focus and ionize for a whopping 62% increase in damage for 1296 per minion. But then we will factor in the secondary blasts, which I must point out you have set no cap, and apply that in addition to the main damage dealt. Take for example your average mob, 6 targets clustered together, with another  set some distance away out of range of the first cluster's secondary blasts. IF, those 6 where all within 6 metres of one another, then your ultimate will inflict up to 3564 damage with alterations from enemy resistance. Now I recognise this ability (and volt in general) is ineffective against infested and only mediocre against grineer, however it is exceptional against corpus, with that damage being doubled.  

 

I like what you did with the skills, OP. They need to be balanced in terms of damage, but the ideas are solid.

 

If volt is intended to be an "alternative to gunplay" and a "caster", these abilities sound like a perfect fit.

Nerfed Overload and Chain Lightning.  I also added a cap of 3 to the secondary blasts on Overload.  Chain Lightning will still be very effective given its low energy cost and Overload will still be Overload.

 

 

Slash dash.

Deals 500 damage.

Deals 3x damage vs light infested and MoAs.

Deals unlimited targets in range.

 

Shuriken

Deals 500 armor ignore damage x2 

Homing

Headshots for double damage.

3x damage vs light infested (poor phorid)

Limited puncture.

 

 

Always look at the strongest abilities and take it from there.

Slash Dash is also recognized as stupidly powerful.  I don't think Volt has to be OP in order to be useful.  Even with the nerf I just applied, it'll still be quite good.  If it dealt armor-ignoring damage, first off, that wouldn't make sense as it is lightning.  Next, I'm going for a spammable caster ability here, hence why the energy cost is so low.  Now at the end of it all, yeah, Volt wouldn't scale as well into endless defense as say Ash because of armor-ignore, but it'll still be plenty powerful.

 

Also, I never look at the strongest abilities.  I try starting from the ones I think are most balanced and I would personally argue that Slash Dash and Shuriken are both a bit OP.  If you start at the strongest, you'll usually start from what is most OP.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

shameless bump

[Carcharias]

Any idea that still uses "lights and energy sources" to create damage in any way is limited. Limited do the the fact that you can only use that ability once in a given spot. A clear drawback on defense missions, and even in non defense missions where you are running back through a room that you have already been through. As long as this concept remains Volt will unfortunately have limited potential compared to every other frame that does not rely on the surrounding for damage. Unless you change the concept from lights to the circuitry (or something) and make it reusable in the same spot.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Carcharias

[Rudest]

I'll share my thoughts on Volt if you don't mind!

You see, I wrote up a concept for a Gunslinger Warframe recently and I couldn't help but realize that the play style I came up with was naturally a derivative of Volt and Saryn's powers. More so Volt than Sayrn. Infact, my concept feels so much like Volt that I feel bad about it.  So much so, that perhaps Volt could be tweaked to be more in line with that style than the redundancy of adding a completely new frame with shared similarities. 

I started to realize that my concept was my vision of how I wanted Volt to be.

His powers naturally lend themselves to gun-play. Super Speed is great for positioning-- Be it making distance to find a good spot to use a long gun from, or getting up-close and personal with a shotgun. The Shield, to state the obvious, is good for its damage buff and securing that aforementioned positioning. The problem is that useing them together isn't all that power efficient. Shield is useful. The ultimate is just another ultimate.

So, to the point, What if Volt was reworked with that in mind? Well rather than being a "potent alternative to gun play", but his kit instead focused on excelling at gunplay--- Accenting the run and gun style. We the advent of so many high-damage caster-archetypes do we really need Volt to be another flavor of that?

My take on power changes:

Shock:  I like your chain lightning idea. However. I would like to see this converted not to a damage power, but to an easily spammable and effective crowd control power. A chain-lighting stun. Like. Guaranteed stun vs. most enemies. Upgrading it causes it to bounce to more targets. Hit a group with it, pull out your Lex, blam, blam, blam. Dead crowd. Satisfying to any prospective gunslinger and provides excellent utility while in a group!

Speed: I think one or two things should happen with this power:
1. It could be removed and replace by two things. An innately high movement speed, akin to Loki, and a power similar to Saryn's Contagion, except it imbues your ranged weapons instead of your melee. The imbuement have a lightning based damage over time effect with a stun chance associated with it. (Which, being as super speed is so signature on Volt, I'm not quite sure how I feel about this route myself)

or

2. Something akin to your idea! A passive benefit such as those you suggested or perhaps as damage reduction or some kind of dodge chance to represent the speed in addition to the power's current effect.

Shield: I like Shield as is, but, it could be removed in favor of a better super speed and the contagion-like power suggested above or kept for the alternative.

Overload: I'd like to, again, see this revised as a form of crowd control. Most ults are just. Push 4. Things die. This could essentially be a larger form of Vauban's Bastille with a decent duration, allowing the player to handle the rest and let his guns do the talking.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Rudest

[Volt_Cruelerz]

As I read through your post, I was just thinking about it and provided some relatively minimal changes to yours, if Volt was tweaked towards what I suggested (and what I honestly think he was meant to be), I think your gunslinger frame would have a place.  Sure, you wouldn't call it "electric shield" anymore, it'd just be an energy shield of some kind but as far as effects go, it would be more or less identical.

 

Idk, I honestly do think that by turning Volt more into a caster, a CC-based gunslinger frame would become a more viable niche.  Eh, just my thoughts.

[Rudest]

Cool cool! I can respect that!

Perhaps since my concept doesn't strike you as that much of a mirror to Volt, then I'll go put some more work into it! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, and thanks for giving me your prospective on mine!

[fatpig84]

Slash Dash is also recognized as stupidly powerful.  I don't think Volt has to be OP in order to be useful.  Even with the nerf I just applied, it'll still be quite good.  If it dealt armor-ignoring damage, first off, that wouldn't make sense as it is lightning.  Next, I'm going for a spammable caster ability here, hence why the energy cost is so low.  Now at the end of it all, yeah, Volt wouldn't scale as well into endless defense as say Ash because of armor-ignore, but it'll still be plenty powerful.

 

Also, I never look at the strongest abilities.  I try starting from the ones I think are most balanced and I would personally argue that Slash Dash and Shuriken are both a bit OP.  If you start at the strongest, you'll usually start from what is most OP.

 

 

Excalibur and Ash aren't even remotely overpowered compared to other frames at all.  Just "decent", not good just decent. 

They need those 2 abilities to even stay in the playing field as their ultimate abilities scale really really terribly (target limit, targeting issues etc).

 

 

Volt's ultimate fails against 1/3 of the enemies in game at low and mid levels. And at higher levels totally ineffective against 2/3 the enemies in game.  At least the other 2 frames have an ultimate that ignores armor but with their own set of huge issues. So he needs a reliable "1" like the 2 above.

 

 

The reason why Volt needs a spell that ignores resist is the same as why Ember needs a 91% damage reduction against other factions with a Max OH build, it is to bring him out of Corpus and Grineer only games. At least for Ember, even if Fire damage suck royally against Grineer, she can still tank and play a run and gun.

 

 

Edit:

Shock needs to be Chain shock with added effect.

 

Shock

25 Energy.

Deal 200/300/400/500 Electrical damage.

Bounces 2/4/6/8 targets

Ignore enemies resistance

Damage reduced by 20% per hop.

Edited June 22, 2013 by fatpig84

[r0ckwolf]

Hi Guys,

i like your ideas a lot, there seems to be some very constructive feedback going around here. So i thought i could share my idea with you which i posted in another Thread already. Some liked it some didn´t, i´m lookin forward to hear what you think.^^

 

-------

 

Volt Redone:

 

-> Stat Changes:

150 Shield capacity

75 Health (reduced from 100)

10 Armor (reduced from 50)

20 Shield recharge (reduced from 22,5)

150 Power (increased from 100)

 

I made him way more fragile overall, while keeping his shields as they are, so that he can charge into battle, but careless players will be punished for staying in too long. Also he will have to be very carefull around toxic enemys, as they would be able to kill him in seconds.

To make up for this, i increased his Power to 150, so he would be able to use his abiltys more consistently. ( as an alternative to guns)

 

I renamed his first 3 Abilties to make them fit my imagination of them better, but they are basicly modified versions of what the Devs had in mind.

 

 

1.Chain Shock (cost 25)

Fires a shock at a targeted enemy which deals high damage and chains to nearby foes.

 

-deals 500 electrical dmg to the targeted enemy and chains to all enemys in a 2/3/5/7 meter radius for 300 electrical damage.

-stuns every enemy hit for 3 seconds

 

 

2.Overcharge (cost 50)

Overcharges Volts body with electricity, shocking nearby enemys and greatly increasing his agility and mellee attacks.

 

-actually the speed buff needs to be greatly reduced to a more controlable amount for this abilty, while still being a very noticeable mobilty booster.

-increased jump height (~2x)

-mellee attack speed is also increased (~50%).

-mellee weapons deal +20/30/40/50% electrical damage and have a 10% chance to knockdown enemys. (except heavy gunners, bosses and ancients).

-lasts 3/4/5/6 seconds

-enemys in a 3m radius around Volt get shocked and staggered for 100 electrical damage.

 

 

3. Electromagnetic Shield (cost 75)

Volt shoots a electromagnetic blast in front of him, that creates an impassable electrical charged wall of protection.

 

-needs to be much larger as before (~3x as big), to really serve as a protective wall.

-on cast, pushes enemys in front of you back.

-no damage reduction for bullets fired through the shield!

-bullets fired through the shield should infact do 20/30/40/50% electrical bonus damage and have a 10% chance to knockdown enemys. (except heavy gunners, bosses and ancients)

-enemys who are close to the wall get shocked/staggered for 100 electrical damage and pushed back.

-lasts for 3/5/7/9 seconds

 

 

4.Overload. (cost 150)

Volt channels large amounts of electricity through enemys and his surroundings, cusing a chainreaction of explosions.

 

-As before the level determines the reach of this abilty.

-Flat damage increase to 1000 electrical damage.

-EVERY crate, door, gun, corpus body, light, etc., triggers a 100 electrical damage explosion in a 3m radius.

-the explosion of grineer guns doesn´t render them unuseable for them.

 

 

What is accompished now:

 

While being more vulnerable overall, Volt can rely on spamming his 1 and 2 skill to deal a lot of damage and kite his enemys effectively, when things get close for him or his allies, well placed shields will create safe zones or an opportunity to relocate. His ulti (while stilll a little situational) can annihilate whole groups of enemys when their forces get overwhelming.

 

Chain Shock would be a crowd controll damage ability, which does considreable damage if cast repeatedly.

 

Overcharge can be used to get Volt quickly in and out of battle, deliver some punishment with his mellee weapon or just effectively kite enemys.

 

Electromagnetic Shield would be a much more powerful tool for controlling the battlefield, boosting weapon damage and creating safe zones to recharge, reload or safe allies. To balance the increase this i greatly reduced its lifetime and increased its energy cost.

 

Overload, is mainly unchanged, but would be a much more reliable tool as a damage source. To balance this i increased it´s cost to 150, to prevent spamming.

 

Note*: as Volt does only electrical damage he remains unefficent against mid to high level infested, while not being completely useless as before. 

 

P.S.: DERebecca, you community managing angel, if you see this please show it to the devs, i would love to hear what they think.^^