ZEPHYR ancient topic return: archwing

[Matt89Connor]

long time ago, i see 1 topic speak about of a rework of this warframe.

the guy who create the topic speak about of the first ability: make this ability toggle and movemnt like archwing.

It was 1 year ago after the update 17, and his dream did not become real, but, after i see the 4th ability of Titania i'm here to say:

It's YOUR time to return mine friend and replace another topic about it, in the past was a dream now it can become reality :) i wait now.

[bowiespoon]

Yeah, I'll be the first to admit that Titania has put Zephyr in an awkward position.

[Railgun_Alter]

inb4, Oxium requirements for Titania will be 7x greater than Zephyr's

[Matt89Connor]

52 minutes ago, Railgun_Alter said:

inb4, Oxium requirements for Titania will be 7x greater than Zephyr's

but zephir is a "wind frame" it can be fly men!!!! 

[Birdframe_Prime]

Hey there, thought I'd poke my nose in on this for a little discussion here. I've had this discussion a lot, and I mean quite seriously a lot with people, it's not just one buried thread, this comes up on almost every Zephyr thread ever. So, here's what we've kind of settled on:

Archwing-mode toggle-flight Zephyr is very, very, VERY unlikely to ever happen. By that I mean that there's little to no incentive for DE to do that. It's not impossible, don't think I'm saying that, and there are plenty of good reasons for Zephyr to fly, I've had every argument under the sun thrown at me over the last year. But the fact remains that, as game designers, DE don't have a reason to give Zephyr flying.

The first reason, not as important as the other reasons, is that the only thing promoting the idea of flight is that she sort of, kinda looks like a bird. All her abilities are Air Caster type, even Tailwind is an ability that pushes her through the air with a burst of wind, not actual flight. It's like saying that Valkyr is the cat frame, because she's themed to look like a cat, except all her abilities make her the berserker frame instead.

That's subjective, though, and could change, so I'll move on to the two arguments that hold up no matter what you believe about the frame itself.

Second reason: you brought up Titania, but look at her, look at what they've had to do to her to make archwing controls work! She shrinks down, and gets custom guns and a sword. Why? Because they can use the animation from existing Archwing swords, and the dual Decurions firing animation for the guns. This way they don't have to design custom animation for every melee weapon, stance, stealth kill, finishers or even try to take the Archwing system (that has only a primary and a melee accounted for) and give it a secondary weapon too.

With a flying Zephyr, they would either have to do the same as Titania, or they'd have to redo all her animations, every single one, to have a flying version too. DE aren't going to do that, the first doesn't fit Zephyr's theme, and the second is way too much work for a single frame.

Third reason: a non-flying Zephyr can do everything that a flying Zephyr can do, sometimes better. If all you change on her is a toggle flight ability, then you've added nothing to the frame. Her mobility doesn't go up, her offense, her defense, her CC, her team support... nothing has changed.

If you look at warframes, they have four categories that their abilities fall into; offense, defense, CC and support. The better abilities mix two of those to cover more with a single cast. Rhino, for example, is very well balanced, Charge is offense, Iron Skin is defense, Roar is a support buff, and Stomp is a CC. Others sacrifice one to be better at others, Trinity has no offense abilities, but Well of Life and Energy Vampire combine team support with single-target CC, Link combines personal defense with CC, and Blessing combines support with a team buff. Then there's Excal who has high offense with Slash Dash, Radial Javelin and Exalted Blade, has one of the best CC abilities in the game with Radial Blind, but has no team support and no defense.

Zephyr has done something else; she's sacrificed team support for mobility. Unfortunately, her offense and her CC abilities are very, very weak by comparison to every other frame. Her offense with partial CC is Dive Bomb, but this is fairly disappointing due to low range and low damage, it does well if you put a Heavy Impact mod on, but you're losing a slot for that. Her big CC with some offense is Tornado, but that wanders off, doesn't seek enemies, throws loot and survivors all over... it's a mess. You cast it, with a duration build for Turbulence it last for more than 30 seconds, but when you turn back, all the funnels are in the corner trying to get out of the map, not providing CC. Her only practical abilities are her Tailwind and her Turbulence. Mobility and Defense.

A rework to Zephyr needs to make her better, not make her the same with a new gimmick.

If she gets re-worked she needs something that will either buff her existing abilities to bring back her offense and her CC, or a new ability that grants her offense/CC/support. I've seen lots of re-work threads. So many suggestions for changes and ideas, with the hundreds of changes that could be made to bring Zephyr up to the current play standards, we have tons of ideas to give to DE that would make her better.

There are people that want to compromise, though. Not flying, as such, but giving her more freedom in the air than she does already.

To that light, another thread currently going in the forums came up with a great suggestion: Loki has a passive that grants him 10 seconds of wall-cling, so why not make Zephyr's low gravity give her 5-10 seconds of null-gravity on Aim Glide? She's light enough that entering aim-glide should let her, temporarily, hover a bit. Eventually she'll fall, after the few seconds, but it's definitely better than putting in some energy draining ability on a frame that has a very low energy pool already.

This way we have a kind of compromise, and can still rework the rest of her abilities, but we don't have to waste an ability slot on the toggle ability.

Improving her, not just slapping on themed gimmicks, think about it that way.

1 hour ago, Railgun_Alter said:

inb4, Oxium requirements for Titania will be 7x greater than Zephyr's

Uh, going to poke this one too, because you seem to have fallen for a bit of a logic reversal: More of something doesn't make it lighter. If you suddenly need 7x more oxium alloy, it makes her 7x heavier, why would her building costs do that? Only reason Oxium was used with Vauban was because DE specifically gave him excessive farming so that people don't get him before they get regular Vauban (in the time it takes to get all four Prime blueprints, 20 Nitain and 7000 Oxium on a regular play cycle, all three normal Vauban parts have dropped from alerts and you'll have time to build them too).

Nitain though... yeah, I can see one or two of her parts costing 3 Nitain to build. Actually, I'll make a little prediction right now:

Because Titania has an archwing strapped to her at all times, I predict we have to sacrifice something from Archwing to build her. Maybe she'll have a fourth part to her main blueprint: Neuroptics, Chassis, Systems, [Archwing Section], (other warframes use that fourth for an Orokin Cell, Vauban requires 5 Nitain, so this wouldn't be too out of place) and we'll have to build that fourth part with bits, like sacrificing the Dual Decurion Barrels, an Odonata Systems and a melee weapon. Calling it now XD

[LuckyCharm]

WTB Strike witches skin for zephyr. 1000p

[Birdframe_Prime]

11 hours ago, LuckyCharm said:

WTB Strike witches skin for zephyr. 1000p

WTB Aa! Megami Sama skin for Zephyr. 2500p. Apply Titania Noble stance.

[Matt89Connor]

7 hours ago, Thaylien said:

WTB Aa! Megami Sama skin for Zephyr. 2500p. Apply Titania Noble stance.

 

19 hours ago, LuckyCharm said:

WTB Strike witches skin for zephyr. 1000p

this isn't a trade chat XD....we speak about a big problem of this Frame 

[Matt89Connor]

21 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Hey there, thought I'd poke my nose in on this for a little discussion here. I've had this discussion a lot, and I mean quite seriously a lot with people, it's not just one buried thread, this comes up on almost every Zephyr thread ever. So, here's what we've kind of settled on:

Archwing-mode toggle-flight Zephyr is very, very, VERY unlikely to ever happen. By that I mean that there's little to no incentive for DE to do that. It's not impossible, don't think I'm saying that, and there are plenty of good reasons for Zephyr to fly, I've had every argument under the sun thrown at me over the last year. But the fact remains that, as game designers, DE don't have a reason to give Zephyr flying.

The first reason, not as important as the other reasons, is that the only thing promoting the idea of flight is that she sort of, kinda looks like a bird. All her abilities are Air Caster type, even Tailwind is an ability that pushes her through the air with a burst of wind, not actual flight. It's like saying that Valkyr is the cat frame, because she's themed to look like a cat, except all her abilities make her the berserker frame instead.

That's subjective, though, and could change, so I'll move on to the two arguments that hold up no matter what you believe about the frame itself.

Second reason: you brought up Titania, but look at her, look at what they've had to do to her to make archwing controls work! She shrinks down, and gets custom guns and a sword. Why? Because they can use the animation from existing Archwing swords, and the dual Decurions firing animation for the guns. This way they don't have to design custom animation for every melee weapon, stance, stealth kill, finishers or even try to take the Archwing system (that has only a primary and a melee accounted for) and give it a secondary weapon too.

With a flying Zephyr, they would either have to do the same as Titania, or they'd have to redo all her animations, every single one, to have a flying version too. DE aren't going to do that, the first doesn't fit Zephyr's theme, and the second is way too much work for a single frame.

Third reason: a non-flying Zephyr can do everything that a flying Zephyr can do, sometimes better. If all you change on her is a toggle flight ability, then you've added nothing to the frame. Her mobility doesn't go up, her offense, her defense, her CC, her team support... nothing has changed.

If you look at warframes, they have four categories that their abilities fall into; offense, defense, CC and support. The better abilities mix two of those to cover more with a single cast. Rhino, for example, is very well balanced, Charge is offense, Iron Skin is defense, Roar is a support buff, and Stomp is a CC. Others sacrifice one to be better at others, Trinity has no offense abilities, but Well of Life and Energy Vampire combine team support with single-target CC, Link combines personal defense with CC, and Blessing combines support with a team buff. Then there's Excal who has high offense with Slash Dash, Radial Javelin and Exalted Blade, has one of the best CC abilities in the game with Radial Blind, but has no team support and no defense.

Zephyr has done something else; she's sacrificed team support for mobility. Unfortunately, her offense and her CC abilities are very, very weak by comparison to every other frame. Her offense with partial CC is Dive Bomb, but this is fairly disappointing due to low range and low damage, it does well if you put a Heavy Impact mod on, but you're losing a slot for that. Her big CC with some offense is Tornado, but that wanders off, doesn't seek enemies, throws loot and survivors all over... it's a mess. You cast it, with a duration build for Turbulence it last for more than 30 seconds, but when you turn back, all the funnels are in the corner trying to get out of the map, not providing CC. Her only practical abilities are her Tailwind and her Turbulence. Mobility and Defense.

A rework to Zephyr needs to make her better, not make her the same with a new gimmick.

If she gets re-worked she needs something that will either buff her existing abilities to bring back her offense and her CC, or a new ability that grants her offense/CC/support. I've seen lots of re-work threads. So many suggestions for changes and ideas, with the hundreds of changes that could be made to bring Zephyr up to the current play standards, we have tons of ideas to give to DE that would make her better.

There are people that want to compromise, though. Not flying, as such, but giving her more freedom in the air than she does already.

To that light, another thread currently going in the forums came up with a great suggestion: Loki has a passive that grants him 10 seconds of wall-cling, so why not make Zephyr's low gravity give her 5-10 seconds of null-gravity on Aim Glide? She's light enough that entering aim-glide should let her, temporarily, hover a bit. Eventually she'll fall, after the few seconds, but it's definitely better than putting in some energy draining ability on a frame that has a very low energy pool already.

This way we have a kind of compromise, and can still rework the rest of her abilities, but we don't have to waste an ability slot on the toggle ability.

Improving her, not just slapping on themed gimmicks, think about it that way.

Uh, going to poke this one too, because you seem to have fallen for a bit of a logic reversal: More of something doesn't make it lighter. If you suddenly need 7x more oxium alloy, it makes her 7x heavier, why would her building costs do that? Only reason Oxium was used with Vauban was because DE specifically gave him excessive farming so that people don't get him before they get regular Vauban (in the time it takes to get all four Prime blueprints, 20 Nitain and 7000 Oxium on a regular play cycle, all three normal Vauban parts have dropped from alerts and you'll have time to build them too).

Nitain though... yeah, I can see one or two of her parts costing 3 Nitain to build. Actually, I'll make a little prediction right now:

Because Titania has an archwing strapped to her at all times, I predict we have to sacrifice something from Archwing to build her. Maybe she'll have a fourth part to her main blueprint: Neuroptics, Chassis, Systems, [Archwing Section], (other warframes use that fourth for an Orokin Cell, Vauban requires 5 Nitain, so this wouldn't be too out of place) and we'll have to build that fourth part with bits, like sacrificing the Dual Decurion Barrels, an Odonata Systems and a melee weapon. Calling it now XD

so you speak about analyze well the powers and capabilities of Frame and do a rework more incisive and concrete? 

Because for me the 3rd and 4th ability are perfect we need to change only the ability to fly

[Birdframe_Prime]

5 hours ago, Matt89Connor said:

so you speak about analyze well the powers and capabilities of Frame and do a rework more incisive and concrete? 

Because for me the 3rd and 4th ability are perfect we need to change only the ability to fly

Okay let me explain a little bit then, because I completely agree that Turbulence is near enough perfect. I love Turbulence, it's the one ability that DE have worked on nearly constantly since it was released in order to make it work the way it was supposed to at the start, so I wouldn't change it. I will say the same about the augment too, because it turns a basic personal defense into a partial team buff when you have good range on it, turning bows into sniper rifles, thrown weapons into assault rifles and the Tonkor into something beautiful. 

Tailwind, too, is nearly perfect, as a mobility cast...

But Zephyr has very little else going for her that applies to the game as we need to play it.

Pardon me, but I'm going to go into a bit of depth on this, so I'll put the longer bits of text into the Spoiler sections.

As I said, every frame in the game has a balance born of four aspects, Offense, Defense, Support and CC. Every frame has at least two of these. Some frames have three, and some frames have all four. The frames in game that are only good at one of these things are the ones that get asked for re-works constantly.

Here's the list:

Spoiler

Ash: 1. Offense 2. Defense (slight CC) 3. Offense 4. Offense.

Atlas: 1. Offense 2. Defense 3. CC 4. balanced Offensive and Defensive CC.

Banshee: 1. Offense 2. Support 3. CC and Support 4. CC

Chroma: 1. Offense 2. Defense and Support 3. Defense 4. Defense and CC, some Offense.

Ember: 1. Offense 2. Support 3. Offense and Defense 4. Offense

Equinox. 1. Defense (personal buff) 2. CC Night / Support Day 3. Support 4. Support Night / Offense and CC Day

Excalibur. 1. Offense 2. CC (one of the best in game) 3. Offense 4. Offense

Frost: 1. Offense and CC 2. Offense and CC 3. Defense and CC 4. Offense and CC

Hydroid: 1. Offense 2. Offense 3. Defense 4. CC

Inaros: 1. CC and Defense 2. CC and Defense 3. CC and Offense 4. Defense and Offense some Support.

Ivara: 1. Defense, Mobility, CC 2. Offense 3. Defense 4. Offense.

Limbo: 1. Support and CC 2. Defense 3. Support 4. Defense and Support

Loki: 1. CC 2. Defense 3. Defense/CC/Support (depending on target) 4. CC and Support (probably the best in game)

Mag: 1. CC and Offense 2. CC, Offense, Defense 3. Support, Defense 4. Offense and CC.

Mesa: 1. Offense 2. Support 3. Defense 4. Offense.

Mirage: 1. Offense and Defense 2. CC (poor CC) 3. Offense or Defense 4. Offense and CC.

Nekros: 1. Offense 2. Defense 3. Support 4. CC and Defense.

Nezha: 1. Offense and CC 2. Offense and Support, some Mobility 3. Defense 4. CC

Nova: 1. Defense 2. (the most damaging) Offense (ability in game) 3. Mobility and Support 4. Support and CC.

Nyx: 1. CC 2. Offense 3. CC 4. Defense and CC, good damage if plenty of CC happens.

Oberon: 1. Offense and CC 2. Defense and Support 3. Support and Defense 4. Offense and CC, light Support.

Rhino: 1. Offense 2. Defense 3. Support 4. CC

Saryn: 1. Offense and Support (synergy adds more Support) 2. Defense and CC 3. Offense (synergy with 1 makes Support) 4. Offense and CC

Trinity: 1. Support some CC 2. Support some CC 3. Defense 4. Support and Defense.

Valkyr: 1. CC and Mobility 2. Support 3. Defense and CC 4. Offense and Defense

Vauban: 1. Offense 2. Defense, CC and Support 3. CC 4. CC

Volt: 1. Offense 2. Support 3. Defense 4. CC and Offense

Wukong: 1. Offense 2. Defense 3. Defense 4. Offense

(Titania: 1. CC 2. Support 3. CC 4. Offense and Defense)

So now that we see that every frame, no matter how bad, covers multiple aspects. You'll note that the ones that people call for re-works on are actually the ones that have abilities geared towards one thing, but don't actually do it that well, or ones that have a theme and don't execute it very well. Oberon has support, but can't do that very well because of either limited range, or needing to psychically predict when to cast his healing in order for it to reach an ally in time. He has Offense, but it's low damage and is better as a CC ability, and he has Defense, but it's only slightly less limiting to him than it is to his team, it leaves him with CC as his primary function, and he's not entirely good at that either. In a similar fashion Limbo, king of the Rift Plane, has abilities for Support, which only work if an ally wants to sacrifice all their weapon damage, loot pick-ups and the ability to interact with objects, Defense, which enemies can walk into easier than they can walk into a Frost bubble or that he has to cast another ability to exploit himself... he needs help as well.

From the opposite end, people ask for Ash reworks, because he's very good, almost too good, at one thing, because of one ability. People want his re-work because they want to have more reason to cast his other abilities, to include other aspects to him that make him more fun to play.

See? If a frame only has one thing it's good at, or is bad at all the things it does, it gets a re-work. Zephyr is only actually good at one thing, here's why:

First, let's look at what Zephyr has:

Zephyr: 1. Mobility 2. Offense and CC 3. Defense 4. CC.

Tailwind, Mobility; very slight damage. It's a great cast, can be done multiple times in succession, and allows an average Zephyr to keep up with Volt in missions without needing his speed buff. (Combine Jet Stream with Volt's Speed and try to keep control, it's hilarious.) As it is, one of the key parts of this frame that makes it stand out from the others, because it gives her even more mobility than Parkour.

Dive Bomb, Offense; damage and CC. This is very poor damage, even when you hit from the maximum height, and also the range, even with Dive Bomb Vortex, makes it poor CC. You have to add in the Heavy Impact mod to make this reliable CC over the limited area it covers, and even then it's still poor damage.

So on this she's lacking the Offense from her offensive ability, and the CC on it is poor.

Turbulence, Defense; personal buff. I mentioned I wouldn't change a thing, and I won't, except maybe add to it when used in synergy with other abilities.

Tornado, CC and Defense; good damage when it hits something. This is where Zephyr most disappointed me as I got better at playing Warframe and made more friends, joined a clan, became head of a clan and expanded how I saw Warframe in general.

Tornado is a disappointing ability because of multiple aspects. First, it's unreliable: the funnels on Tornado are not enemy seeking, they have no reliable way of picking up an enemy and providing the CC and damage they provide (a regular strength build, maybe 130% strength, can allow one funnel to deal over 2,500 damage to an enemy, that's nearly as much as a max-strength Stomp, if you change to the right elemental damage, that's 10,000 if you hit an enemy with all four funnels). Most common problems with the funnels on Tornado relate to the fact that they wander off, they go stop in a corner, they move to parts of the map enemies don't walk on, sometimes they even leave the map altogether. Second, in a game that revolves around loot and killing enemies to get loot, Tornado makes getting either very difficult. A funnel from Tornado picks up enemies and loot, and when they reach the top of the funnel, they are launched in random directions, loot and surviving enemies spraying all over the map. In any game mode that makes you kill your enemies to progress, like Defense, Survival or Exterminate, this is a bad thing, as your team now has to hunt down and find all the surviving enemies in the far corners of the map, wait for a funnel to release them, try to pick up all that scattered loot... and if you're in a place with a roof on it, enemies can even just get pinned to the roof, alive but unable to be killed since they're inside a funnel (which absorbs bullets to change its damage type), while all the loot is stuck up there too. And Third, you can't turn it off. It's a duration based cast, which I like, but it has no off button. If a funnel leaves the map, or is standing uselessly in a corner, if you've pinned an enemy to the roof and need to kill him to finish the mission, you have to wait for the cast to end before you can fix that.

In short, Tornado is unreliable at providing CC, unreliable at providing Defense, and what damage it has for Offense is similarly unreliable. You can't count on it to do what it's supposed to do.

In shorter, she has the options for Offense and CC, and can't reliably do those. This means she only has Defense as something she's good at because her Mobility doesn't effect the game the way the main four do.

Now, let's move on to how we can improve the dear aerial caster frame in the most simple ways possible!

I have here some fixes that will help with her existing abilites. All of these are designed to use the 'Path of Least Resistance' option. What I mean by that is that DE can use existing programming tricks to adjust these existing abilities in order to improve them. It's minimal work that only requires balance checking to complete.

For those of you who read my stuff regularly on these threads, this is updated! New changes are here!

Spoiler

Passive, make it a little better: People that want flight are forgetting how much effort and time DE would have to put in to make that happen. The amount of animation changes and programming, so instead I say to boost her passive. Zephyr's passive is low gravity, Aim Glide reduces gravity on all frames and lets them fall slowly. Combine Aim Glide's reduction with Zephyr's base reduction to give Zephyr a 5-10 second zero-gravity. A 'hover' for a duration. The same as Loki having extended Wall Cling, Zephyr has extended Aim Glide.

A really fun suggestion I was given before is that when you aim-glide through a Tornado funnel, it boosts you into the air like the puzzle on Lua for Agility Drift. Simple, fun and a great mechanic if it can also apply to your team.

Tailwind, Quality of Life Changes: A recover for when she hits walls. Builds that give her a long Tailwind time are notorious for hitting walls and just... fire-working against them until the ability is finished. Using the new parkour system, a hard impact should trigger a wall-cling recovery to enable her to move off again quickly in case of mistake, or incoming projectiles.

Tailwind, Aim; most people know the frustration of juuuuust missing the door in small spaces, hitting the edge, not the clean air of the open room beyond. So, having Tailwind able to follow the cursor, just a little, just a small amount to change a straight line to the wall, into a curve that hits the target.

Dive Bomb, combine with Tailwind: A lot of people that I speak to actually think Dive Bomb should be replaced in entirety, but I disagree as it can quite easily be made a part of Tailwind instead. The easiest way to do this would be an angle detection. Simple, if you're aiming at the floor at a steep angle, let's say you have to be aiming anywhere in a circle of 10-15 meters directly underneath Zephyr, and a little target appears on the floor. Press 1 and you Dive Bomb that target. It would also make Dive Bomb Vortex apply to Tailwind, too, causing ragdolls on enemies that she flies past!

Dive Bomb, a charge mechanic: One of the most irritating things about Dive Bomb is that it doesn't reliably knock things down or stagger them, because of that there's very little reason to go up in the air and dive on any given enemy, much quicker to shoot them and move on. Give Zephyr a charge, like the one Volt has, so that air-time builds up additional impact for Dive Bomb, making a larger and larger area (up to a fixed range) of impact and if maximum charge is reached, everything in range is knocked down or rag-dolled. 

Turbulence, nothing to do here: One of the best damage reduction abilities in game, let's move on. Except... maybe some synergy? Wind strong enough to deflect bullets should be strong enough to do something else.

Tornado, an AI rework: This sounds simple, it changes very little about Tornado as a visual or physical ability, even the damage and adjustable element type. You put a range on how far the ability is cast. Think Tentacle Swarm, range affects how far they can spread out. Why is this important? Putting a range on the area that Tornado 'patrols' allows for improving every other element of the AI.

1. The funnels can move faster.
2. They can follow the nav-mesh so they will always be where the enemy will walk, not on top of objects or out of the map.
3. They can actively seek enemies, so once a funnel releases an enemy, the next will target it and the next after that, able to deal all of its potential damage.
4. The release mechanics of the funnels can be changed, launching enemies and loot straight up, important because when they land, they are still in range of the other funnels. More-so, an actual 'release' means that even if they hit the roof, the same funnel can't hold them there indefinitely, it has to move on.
5. Enemies cannot shoot through funnels, the same as players, adding Defense to the ability.

This turns Tornado from a roving source of potential CC into an active, area denial type CC on par with Vortex, Bastille, Tentacle Swarm and maybe even Sound Quake. You can use it to block off an approach to a pod, prevent enemies from taking an Interception node, target a specific group of enemies in Survival or guard your back while you activate life support. It makes it reliable, you're able to cast it and forget it for 30 seconds and it's still doing its job when you come back.

A lot of people, me included, have added that this should have an active dispel, pressing the button again should turn it off. Allow us to re-cast somewhere else for adaptability and swift reactions.

The single reason that Tornado is so unreliable as it stands is because it's free-roaming. Limit the roaming, and you can up the control and power.

Those changes I've thought about for a long time. They're all based off how much effort DE would have to do to make them happen, to change the mechanics of the abilities so that each one becomes far more viable at all levels of play. I'm not increasing the damage, I don't want one of those abilities to dominate her entire play style, I want all of her abilities to be useful at all times.

So now her abilities read like this:

1. Mobility and CC, light Offense, 2. ??? 3. Defense, 4. CC and Defense.

Which leads me on to the most important question of all: what can we now put on 2 in order to make Zephyr better?

Your idea was to make a toggle Flight mode on her, but I honestly think it's a waste.

Why? Because you leave her with only the improvements I've already suggested. A flying Zephyr can't defend a pod any better than a non-flying Zephyr. A flying Zephyr still can't provide Support to other players because she can't buff them, or debuff the enemy. A flying Zephyr doesn't have any more Offense than a non-flying Zephyr. Yes the changes I've mentioned up above make her better at Defense and CC, they give her a better Offense in the form of a better Dive Bomb, but that's just it... I've given ideas for improving her existing abilities, bringing them up to the standards of the current game, but it doesn't add anything.

I'm trying to add things, as I said, not make her the same but with a gimmick. Flying is a gimmick. It doesn't add anything to her except more mobility that she doesn't need since she already will have Tailwind and an improved Aim Glide function. With those, she doesn't need flying. Even now! Even right now in game with her existing abilities, a non-flying Zephyr can do things just as well, if not better, than a flying Zephyr. If you improve her existing abilities that fact doesn't change.

Meaning it's time to move on!

Add a new ability that will give her either a new aspect she hasn't had before, or improve an aspect she does now so that she becomes better.

This is something people have been suggesting for months and months. If we combine Tailwind and Dive Bomb into the same ability, it leaves her free to have a new one.

Below are some of the suggestions, all the names are 'working' names, if you have any idea what to call them, please let me know, because I'm happy to take suggestions. These are collected and refined by other people than me, although I've added ideas too:

Spoiler

 

1. Raptor: A team buff ability that gives all frames enhanced senses and increased aerial damage reduction, increasing Enemy Radar and Loot Radar, and providing a highlight on enemies for their weak points (not like Banshee, the regular ones), particularly useful against bosses and infested, as their weak points are often not where you'd expect, and whenever an ally is in the air enemy accuracy is reduced.

Augment, Bird of Prey; enemies hit with Zephyr's abilities are all marked for Life Steal, healing her and allies on death for a fixed amount.

2. Compression: A team buff to weapon damage, charging all shots with additional damage, affected by strength. (Since Zephyr is so reliant on her weapons for damage, why not buff that?)

Augment, Compression Blast; weapons gain a 100% chance to either stagger or ragdoll enemies.

3. Swoop: This is a replacement for Dive Bomb entirely, Zephyr targets an individual and dives on them, picking them out of the crowd, knocking down enemies around the target, and returning to her original position, dealing finisher damage and ragdolling the enemy as she drops it for single-point CC.

Augment, Swoop Vortex: similar to Dive Bomb Vortex, except enemies around the victim are all dragged up with her instead of being knocked down, only the original target suffers finisher damage.

4. Cannon Shot: Zephyr blasts a ball of air that knocks down enemies in a small radius for as long as its duration lasts. The bowling-ball of the Tenno world ^^ Projectiles shooting through the ball are absorbed adding to the damage, applies to both allies and enemies.

Augment, Orbit Shot: Three balls of wind circle Zephyr at a range of 3-4 meters staggering enemies for their duration.

5. Wind Lance: (My personal choice) A lance of wind shoots at Zephyr's target, gaining momentum and dealing more damage and CC the further it travels. At close range it deals a set amount of finisher damage and staggers a single enemy for quick CC, at mid-range it knocks down an enemy, dealing double damage and staggers enemies in a radius, at long range it ragdolls a single enemy, dealing 4x damage and knocks down all enemies in the radius.

Augment, Wind Cross: Two lances slice a shorter range in front of Zephyr, damaging and spinning all enemies in range, Confusing them for more CC.

 

As you can see, these abilities all add something. Raptor and Compression would add Support, buffing allies. Swoop is a better Dive Bomb for more Offense and single-target CC. Cannon Shot and Wind Lance add Offense and area CC from opposite sides, where Cannon Shot does better at short to middle range, because getting in your enemy's face and making the ball tank damage for you helps out, while Wind Lance does better from middle to long-range, gaining CC and damage the further it goes and encourages you to use your height and mobility.

These abilities are ones that would give Zephyr a different role in a team depending on which one they gave her, too. Now people would want her along with a Bird of Prey build for the life gain and enemy accuracy debuff. They would want her as a damage buffer if she had Compression. She would be able to either play better solo or play in a team with a ranged CC and Offense ability, shutting down high-damage targets and stopping them from reaching allies or defense points. Orbit Shot would make her effective against Infested, as would Wind Cross, something that she's not very effective against in game currently. And any of those abilities that adds Finisher damage, like Wind Lance or Swoop, would instantly make her useful in missions with high enemy armour, very useful against grineer and void enemies, which are her preferred target because of Turbulence negating all their rifle/sidearm weapons and bombard/napalm rockets.

So what do you think?

I know that was a lot of text to wade through, but Zephyr is one frame that I've been thinking about and trying to improve for nearly a year now. So many people have given me ideas, and I wish I could thank them all for arguing with me so much ^^

But honestly, Zephyr doesn't need flight. I can't put it any more simply. I know you, and others, want it, but Zephyr doesn't need it.

[Birdframe_Prime]

8 hours ago, Matt89Connor said:

this isn't a trade chat XD....we speak about a big problem of this Frame 

Sorry, but this wasn't trade.

This is an in-joke about how we wanted skins for Zephyr that looked like anime girls that could fly. Strike Witches is an anime where witches fly by strapping aeroplane engines to their legs that they power with magic, and Aa! Megami Sama is an anime about a guy getting a goddess as his girlfriend, she can fly, uses wind-based magic and has a guardian angel that comes out of her back, making it look like she has wings, and the costumes and animation are gorgeous.

Go watch them, they're fun shows!

[DeadScream]

I would personnaly ENJOY A LOT seeing 2 warframes ingame being able to fly properly. 

+ Zephyr is out of an old very popular fan concept, which (in my humble opinion) was more interesting than the current Zephyr. And it could fly ! 

 

The first thing I thought when I saw Titania's 4th ability was : " Hell, why can't Zephyr fly then ? " 

Remember Archwing was not in the game when Zephyr was released, now DE have all they need to give the flight ability to Zephyr. 

 

I don't play this frame though, I really dislike her 4th ability too much :( so maybe my point of view is a little too personal.