BLADESTORM: Does it really NEED to Change?

[(PSN)DBR87]

First off, fun is subjective. What one person finds fun another person finds boring.

Second, yes. It does need to change. It is one thing to nuke a room of Lvl 50s but when you're nuking lvl 100s you're trivializing what is supposed to be "end game" content.

As far as I can tell, Blade Storm is the best scaling instant nuke in the entire game. Maim takes time to charge and Avalanche does not kill as effectively at higher levels as Blade Storm does. But my beef with Blade Storm isn't it's killing potential but rather the behavior it encourages.

The player can build solely to maximize blade storm, take no guns and can unleash 4 on everything until it dies....which will happen in two uses tops. I am not asking for it's damage to be nerfed rather I feel it should require more player input in order for it to be executed. Mesa's Peacemaker scales pretty well, too but at least you have to aim Peacemaker and stay out of harm's way.

[Sigmas71]

ash user here. yes it does. 

Spoiler

9 minutes ago, Hail_Cobras said:

kind of how Mesa got a rework for her ult.

this might be the thing. same basic functionality, more player involvement. Unless they can come up with something utterly amazing to better compliment his skillset 

 

[motorfirebox]

Personally, I found it to be a lot of fun when I first got Ash. That wore off after about six months. Ash is the epitome of press-4-to-win.

It would be fun if there were any challenge at all to it. Like, personally, I actually enjoy playing Saryn nowadays. I don't feel like she's as powerful as she once was (opinions differ), but she's a lot more fun. 

In terms of taking fun away from everyone else, the biggest problem I see is that his Bladestorm range is almost unlimited. Because its radius is based off a targeted enemy, rather than Ash's current location, Ash can easily control entire maps. So even if nothing else about BS changes, I feel like either it needs to be centered on Ash's current location or the radius needs to be drastically reduced.

Personally, my hope for BS is that it becomes a debuff power. Drastically reduce the damage on BS itself (like REALLY drastically, down to maybe 200 instead of its current 2k), but drastically increase the damage (and possibly drop the cost) on Ash's other powers against bleeding targets. For instance, using Shuriken on a bleeding target automatically red crits, and hitting a bleeding target with a Shuriken makes the next Shuriken cast cost 5 less energy (base), stacking up to 3 times. So you enter a roomful of enemies, BS the hell out of it, and then start chucking shuriken at high-priority targets. Teleport could receive the same treatment—automatic red crits on enemies while they're staggered. Smoke Screen already gets stealth multipliers, not sure it needs any additional damage.

[Jamescell]

@BlackCoMerc You keep comparing Baldestorm to other abilities and suggesting that because we have these other (based on my standards) poorly designed abilities bladestorm shouldn't be fixed. That's simply flawed logic.

But what makes this argument even less valid is that fact that you're creating false equivalencies. You talk about spammability and a lack of interaction but you fail acknowledge invulnerability, sheer damage output, and player input.

Frost's Avalanche is a poorly designed ability (for a game trying to be strategic), but it cannot deal with as high level enemies as bladestorm can. You cite your own experience getting more kills with avalanche then bladestorm but "automatically killing things quickly" is not the only thing that makes bladestorm a bad ability. At a very intermediate level Avalanche falls off. Bladestorm falls of at a much, much, much higher threshold.

Ember's World on fire is another mind-numbingly automated ability, but again, it's damage threshold is much lower than that of bladestorm  and it's also channeled so you have to deal with the restrictions on energy regeneration.

Maim also has a much lower potential to auto-kill things quickly than bladestorm. Maim is also channeled so you have to deal with energy regen restrictions. Most importantly, however, in order to get a good damage output from maim you need to use it interactively (perhaps not to a great extent or in a complicated manner, but still it must be interacted with and requires player decision that dictates the performance of the ability throughout the mission).

As for Hysteria- Hysteria is also a terrible ability from a tactical-game standpoint, but Hysteria is not automated. You won't do anything for your team if you take your hands of the mouse and keyboard. With Bladestorm you can do so for lengthy amounts of time.

Piecemaker doesn't provide invulnerability and requires player interaction to use well.

Also, as the person below me pointed out, bladestorm stops allies from dealing damage to enemies.

 

 

Edited August 8, 2016 by Jamescell

[cittran]

19 minutes ago, Camelslayer said:

*snip*

Damage types that bypass all resistances in a game are poor game design, and I can't name a single game where it's actually been done right.

I've got 2 for you.

Pokemon Colosseum, and Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness.

In the former, it just dealt unmitigated damage to every type at normal effectiveness. In the latter, it dealt super-effective damage (double-damage).

And given the popularity of both games, I'd say Nintendo did pretty well.

 

On-topic, though, I have a problem with Bladestorm for a few reasons. The primary reason is that it stops allies from killing targets.

The secondary reason is the absurd damage levels it does. Unmodded, and starting from an entirely-fresh combo-counter, a single cast of Bladestorm can deal up to 203,125 finisher damage.

[rockscl]

the thing i dont like about blade storm is that its max potential doesnt require player participation, they dont need to change it all they just need to build in it a player participating mechanic, like what they did with mesa, by example, for bladestorm i would be okish with being able to Arch-melee the marked targets

Edited August 8, 2016 by rockscl

[(XBOX)Woofsie]

7 minutes ago, cittran said:

I've got 2 for you.

Pokemon Colosseum, and Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness.

In the former, it just dealt unmitigated damage to every type at normal effectiveness. In the latter, it dealt super-effective damage (double-damage).

And given the popularity of both games, I'd say Nintendo did pretty well.

 

On-topic, though, I have a problem with Bladestorm for a few reasons. The primary reason is that it stops allies from killing targets.

The secondary reason is the absurd damage levels it does. Unmodded, and starting from an entirely-fresh combo-counter, a single cast of Bladestorm can deal up to 203,125 finisher damage.

And need to either go replay Colosseum, or cosplay as the main character (Seth, Wes? The Snagger).

[taiiat]

it's a really boring Ability.
it's directly against the main prerogative of Video Games, as being an interactive form of Media.

not being interactive, makes it a Computer Rendered movie.

[-CG.WFO.A4NC.EN.CM-Nub]

The Bladestorm needs these reworks to:

- Allow other people to shoot and cause damage to the Badestorming target instead of making them invincible and only taking damage from bladestorm.

- The ultimate is just plain boring, and the devs said they will make it more interesting, and that is not the defenition of nerf

P/S: Bladestorm ulimate can be resisted, try using it on Ancient Disruptor

[-CG.WFO.A4NC.EN.CM-Nub]

And the fact that you never seen Saryn is just pure bad luck

Her skillset is extremely powerful, and fun to use, it requires a lot of actions not just pressing 4

[shoopypit]

I'm copying something I typed in another thread. I feel like it's relevant. Lets start by getting rid of BS altogether. It's outdated and boring, and no amount of changing the ability itself will make it fun.

"

a toggle ability where you aim and throw shurikens that use sidearm mods would be better. think ivaras 4. then make his 2 his 1 and his 3 his 2 and the new 3 should be harakiri. ritualistically disemboweling himself cutting his health in half and increasing all damage by 2 and giving him a Rage passive for the remainder of the duration. if the new 4 is cast during the duration, harakiri ends when 4 is toggled off. 

 

for this new four maybe make it a dual wield. a wakizashi in his left and shurikens in his right. a new stance would be made for this obviously. "

[Chipputer]

Yes it needs to be changed. At this very moment you have people who see any Grineer sortie and immediately bring Ash so that absolutely nothing can fight back or live against what they're doing with absolutely no effort. You couple that with a Carrier and now the Ash is also picking up energy orbs as they automatically kill everything around them with no chance of the enemy fighting back. It becomes a self sustaining area wide nuke skill.

That's not to mention the fact that I can't attack anything they're hitting. Ember? She might deal a ton of damage and kill things but anything she's hitting with World on Fire can also be attacked by me. Frost? He actually holds enemies still and reduces their armor so that it's easier for me to both hit and kill the enemy. Bladestorm is almost unique in the fact that it forces me to switch to another target because that Ash player decided that it was his mission to kill absolutely everything in the room at the detriment of my enjoyment of the game.

12 minutes ago, N00b13 said:

P/S: Bladestorm ulimate can be resisted, try using it on Ancient Disruptor

This is a scary thing to think about, too. That Ash that spams Bladestorm happens to catch a disruptor's group and is now stuck spamming Bladestorm on the Disruptor and the energy leech that's within it. Now I have to entirely reposition myself or I won't be able to do anything with my energy for the entire time that the skill is making the enemy that's sapping my energy invulnerable, if not simply just making the enemy that helps other enemies resist my abilities, by itself, invulnerable.

Also, please don't fall into the same trap that people who argue that the Tonkor is balanced do. Something else being poorly designed, OP, or otherwise, doesn't automatically make that other thing less poorly designed, less OP, or less otherwise.

[Evanescent]

Leaving the issues of WoF and Avalanche not being really good abilities in terms of designed, let us compare Ash while in Bladestorm with Frost and Ember  using their named powers:

Ash: taken out of player control over a long, long time, player need only have LoS and not move to take out entire rooms in single casts. Makes targeted enemies invulnerable to other player's damage. Does not interact with any other power in his kit. Scales way way into lategame (which is not really a problem in itself, but is important as to how long and frequently it is used.)

Frost: taken out  of player control for a second or two, to be effective in large area must be moving around casting repeatedly.. Enemies are still able to be taken out by other players. Can be paired with other powers to keep enemies locked down. Scales poorly in damage, but good CC.

Ember: player always in control, must move around to be fully effective. Affected enemies are vulnerable to other players. Can pair with other abilities to boost damage, or keep enemies CC-ed. Scales poorly but okay CC.

Finally, Ash plays the game for you, something I don't find fun. His abilities don't really work together, and his mechanics are out-dated except for teleport.

I hope I have made my case.

[_Iye]

Some even most people may hate me saying these but

Fun is everything The Game is all about and now there are people looking for fun-unfun even in the game materials, thats funny as hell

Kills and Wins depend on player skillset rather than mere VIRTUAL WARFRAME ultimate powers, I have seen my younger brother (MR-17) get more kills than an ember prime (VET.MR-21) and ASHes many times using his not so awesomely built ASH PRIME (danm he is so flexible with ASH) but with RAKTA CERNOS & rarely the teleporting to cover the ground distance.

We are the user so it depends on us what and how to use, yeah there are MR-15+/20+ noobs/draco players but c'mon complaining or suggesting for a rework of a frame really doesnt make sense here. Its a game danm it, there are lots of other things can be done to resist a player not spamming the ults rather than nerfing it in the name of rework..!!

Already there are some or even many frames Resting.I.P in the arsenal and hardly get a chance to come out and taste the battlefield just beacuse of this silly community (not everyone though). After the recent game reworks/updates I have found ASH's ultimate not so effective on killing things and more to mention when I'm not with ASH I can kill the ASH targeted mobs with melee or primary.

Small suggestion: I am not against or supporting any party here but would suggest people often try the conclave to become expert on controls and movements. Trust me mobs wont even be able to see or catch you whatever if its sortie or lortie or jorvie, you will only end up using your ultimate to ONLY escape a sadly cornered situation and moreover for escaping and for many frames there are other abilities which will help you escape without even using the ults so why relying on ults and starting to judge if its fun or not..!!??

(Requesting everyone not to get salty here but I am a TENNO here as well and I operate WARFRAMES)

Edited August 8, 2016 by AhmadIYE

[Chipputer]

6 minutes ago, AhmadIYE said:

I have seen my younger brother (MR-17) get more kills than an ember using ember prime (VET.MR-21) many times using ash but with RAKTA CERNOS & rarely the teleporting to cover the ground distance which is mostly bugged as not performing the finisher.

I... hope you realize that an Ash killing more than an Ember (I don't know why you mentioned MR or the Prime part, as that means absolutely nothing) is completely normal.

[(XBOX)Oussii]

2 hours ago, Mineeden said:

So pressing 4 and doing nothing is fun.....

When i want to kill ememies i want to kill emeies and not watch how they die

Cool. so let's remove ember world on fire, frost avalanche, hydroid tentacle swarn, mesa....

Do i need to go on? the list is soooooooooooo long.

Isn't also the same issue with Synoid simulor? you shoot without aiming, and u kill a dozen of enemies.

Or the kulstar with 17000 blast damage. you don;t need also to aim, just fire it close and you will end up killing a dozen in one shot and from a distance.

different powers in frames they do exist (i guess) so u can have multiple choices of a game play

You choose the style you like,,

BTW, you don't like Ash blade storm, don't use it. others may still want it ;)

you want to kill enemies, not watch them die, i suggest you stick to Oberon and you will have your wish granted.

 

[_Iye]

1 minute ago, Chipputer said:

I... hope you realize that an Ash killing more than an Ember.......

May be I failed to clear the actual meaning there for you and that is yeah with ASH but not using the ULTIMATE but rather with RAKTA CERNOS using his awesome controlling skills and movement where the high ranking ember (tried to imply the experience here) WoF toggled on and running.

[_Iye]

2 minutes ago, (XB1)Oussii said:

You choose the style you like,, and of-course you gotta have that skill so that you dont have to use the frame ults so often

BTW, you don't like Ash blade storm, don't use it. others may still want it ;) People often loves to impose their own desire and likings on others.

Well Said....

[(XBOX)Oussii]

3 minutes ago, AhmadIYE said:

Well Said....

Thank you

[Nazrethim]

I'm totally ok with DE going for a change for Ash, but I don't think it should be Bladestorm alone, but rather a full rework. So let's recap his abilities and their issues:

-Shuriken: Auto-tracking is unrealiable (more noticeable in the high speed enviroment of conclave) and the flight arc makes it pointless if you are in closed spaces or near walls because the shuriken ends up colliding with the enviroment. It also eliminates player choice to some degree, Want to Shuriken kill that pesky shield osprey? too bad, the shuriken decided to track a completely unrelated enemy 5m away from your crosshairs.

-Smoke Screen: Loki's invisibility, but shorter and with a near useless stagger.

-Teleport: Nothing, the ability is fine. The augment eliminates the interactive part of the ability (half the time because it's also very very buggy) by making the finisher automatic (and also scr*ws you up because the auto-finisher doesn't count towards the melee combo counter)

-Bladestorm: the issues with this have already been listed.

Conclave:

Shuriken: bad and unreliable, but useful if you are willing to cast it 4 times hoping that it will decide to track the target almost dead you are directly aiming at instead of a wall, ceiling, floor or a random dude at full health that's flying around the corners of your LoS

Smoke Screen: everyone can see you, last 8s useless seconds, doesn't stagger, the augment is cr*p, breaks if you take damage or attempt to attack or you collect a pickup or sneeze. Useless 95% of the time

Teleport: doesn't do anything other than moving you near someone and wasting energy, it doesn't stagger nor triggers any finisher or anything useful. The ONLY ability in the whole dam Conclave that it's 100% useless ALL the time.

Bladestorm: pointblank range, consumes 100 energy on button press rather than successful cast, deals 200ish damage (around the same as Rhino charge), doesn't have bleed, doesn't make you invulnerable (you can still be killed by AoE while you are in animation), can be interrupted with an AoE CC (like Sound Quake). It's useless 95% of the time.

 

What I fear (and have good reason to do so) is that DE will make Ash's abilities useless or requiring each other if you want them to be useful. That's the problem with Saryn's rework, sure she's deadly, but you are required to cast the abilities together because on their own they are mostly pointless. That's not synergy.

To me, reworks are okay, as long as they stick to my ridiculously high standard:

- The Warframe must keep his/her theme (Aka: What Lotus says about them).

Example:

"This is Ash, lethal and elusive. Ash can remain unseen, but his effects on the battlefield can be felt by all. Keep an eye out, Tenno." -Lotus

-The ability set must synergize (as in, work better when used in combo) but at the same time the abilities must not require each other  to get their supposed job done.

- Must be interactive, the Players has to play, not let the game play itself (Aka: "Press 1/2/3/4 to win")

- Shouldn't require more than a stat tweak to work in Conclave, remaining mechanically the same so a player can go from Coop to PvP and don't find themselves trying to re-learn how to use their warframe.

- Must be simple to use so a new player can pick up what does what quickly, but at the same time allow for skilled players some crazy tactical stuff.

 

[Windy_Wind]

It does need rework. I don't find pressing 4 to win is fun, it's not interactive. And room nuking is..well for me it's boring as hell.

[(XBOX)Oussii]

I do respect all points of view, but i will try to be the devil's advocate here.

it's not fun to press 4 and win? good, choose another frame to play with and don't press 4, or play with Ash and don't press 4.

if you guys are against Ash, why did you get it in the first place? Oh wait, for the MR leveling? that opens another issue !

Or maybe you don't have it and just speculating. whatever the case is....You don't like it, sell it, put it on the side.

De has reworked earlier some frames and they messed up doing so.

As i said earlier in a previous post, different powers exist for multiple styles.

I don't need Ash to kill a whole bunch of enemies in a room.

I can do avalanche, and believe it or not, i can do it with Oberon (btw, his passive power is great to pass MR22 test), should we also rework that power?

As i respect your point of view, i expect you guys respect also the point of view of others.

PS: let's see how many frames will kill 10 enemies in one go (pressing 4)

Ember

Oberon.

Frost

Loki (you become invisible and kill ), where the fun it that. or disarm and kill... where is the fun in that

Hydroid

Atlas

Nekros

Mesa

Vauban (launch your vortex, let it do the job),, or hang them high with bastille and take your time. where is the fun in that?

Banshee (lock the board), where is the fun in that. it's boring,, no? specially on interception level 100

Mirage (you get 5 guns) or the blinding... you blind enemies and kill them, where is the fun in that?

Nova. Why slow down the enemies? where is the fun in that?

Trinity. Why do u need EV? where is the fun in that?

Do i need to go on?

PPS: Let's rework all the powers, or better yet, remove then all and re-work the title of the game into Call of Duty. (warframe version)

I rest my case for this topic, i don't think i can add anything to your future comments.

Cheers

 

 

[Zzz-Somnus-zzZ]

Well true, I'll agree with most of the people commenting here that Bladestorm is BS (Heh.) at least in terms of animation as some of the attacks don't play out as nicely.

Plus, maxed arcane strike and primed fury = slide show spam. But, I also believe Bladestorm should not be nerfed, just needs to be reworked.

And yeah, I've always agreed that the other warframes' ult.s should be nerfed. I mean... balanced and plus a crap ton of other improvements that DE could have tossed up:

>>Allow for the healing/damaging burst when equinox's mend/maim runs outta energy

>>>Tweak the focus system cos its hard to "focus" on the main objective when u need to run elsewhere just to get a convergence orb and compete with maxed power str Ember primes/ maxed Atk speed Ashes for affinity during that 50+ secs to get affinity for focus skills. Esp. when some missions like interception needs players to space out to cap. the 4 points and not chase every mob u find. *I can't emphasise the irony in the naming of this system LOL*

The main problem as I see it is not that Bladestorm is too spammable/ too powerful cos World on Fire/Avalanche etc... but rather, unlike the other abilities, it gets boring.

I mean its kinda hard to afk for a few seconds just for Bladestorm to play out. (World on Fire still lets u use other abilities/ weps as its a channelled ability, Avalanche has a considerably shorter casting time) This is esp. true of Ash users when they accidentally press that cursed *4* while an Ancient Disrupter is in his AOE. Imo thats probably why they allowed for Ash's passive to cause bleed more easily, over a longer duration - less attack animations on same target.

[Zzz-Somnus-zzZ]

Personally I would like it better when instead of becoming one of the doppelgangers, you stay as you are. It should continue to be a one-use ability.

You only see your first attack animation and remain invulnerable for a limited duration (???secs).

-Then, you are allowed to move out of the previously fixed AOE to mark enemies with Shuriken (limited to ??? times during this *buff*) which instead of dealing direct damage, they summon the Doppelgangers to attack (finisher damage and bleed proc.)

 >>>>>>>Doppelgangers' attacks will still be affected by the same things Bladestorm is currently affected by).

- Seeking Shuriken (Augment mod) still applies during this mode when you cast Shuriken, but instead damage dealt is dependant on Bladestorm. 

 >>>>>>>Yes I know finishing damage bypasses armor but just to make it such that the mod won't be completely useless in this mode should you use this skill on...   say, a Juggernaut? Esp. when u have other players with you.

-If Fatal teleport (Augment mod) is used during this time, you will do a backflip after teleporting to target, leaving a doppelganger to attack BUT with the doppelganger exploding after attack animation ends (AOE damage to nearby foes, damage is distributed to those within AOE after damage calculation inclusive of Fatal teleport's damage boost) 

-If need be, cap the max enemies that you can kill while under this ability to 18 still. Should the 18 enemies already die before the time runs out, end ability prematurely.

-Max of (???) Doppelgangers attacking at any one time to limit its effectiveness.***  > For less spamming of (1) during this buff.  

Think of it as a temporary god-mode buff (which Bladestorm currently is) but with greater control over your attack targets. 

 

 

Also, its kinda lame. Thought he'll like churn up some erm... ash clouds to indicate his starting attack animation. (And not just stone there for that split sec)

There should be a striking smoky effect during his casting of abilities, similar to the Stalker, so his name as Ash would be more appropriate.

And yes I know the original plan was so that he could represent a locust plague upon pressing 4...as you can tell from bug designs in the frame (Scorpion and locust in the alt. helms' names) and errr... buggier mechanics yet.

Problem here is: we don't wanna be just another bug amidst the many. We want to be THE BUG that wields the power of countless more bugs and to lord the power over the heads of our enemies.

 

And yeah this post is pretty ambitious regarding the changes I proposed and I'm all good if this gets scrapped as just another crazy fanboy moment over another buff/nerf decision regarding a popular frame. But heck, we're all gamers right? We live for these fanboy moments; to revere creativity at its best and to share it with those that share our sentiments.

Most importantly, please don't nerf Ash. Already, Ember and Frost Primes are crazy hard to get as an F2P, so Ash P has been my definition of a go-to frame for sorties. This is not a priority over the big content updates but well, for many others and myself...its my gateway there. 

Thanks for keeping the forums civil (mostly),

-Just another Formalisk

[Camelslayer]

5 hours ago, cittran said:

I've got 2 for you.

Pokemon Colosseum, and Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness.

In the former, it just dealt unmitigated damage to every type at normal effectiveness. In the latter, it dealt super-effective damage (double-damage).

And given the popularity of both games, I'd say Nintendo did pretty well.

 

On-topic, though, I have a problem with Bladestorm for a few reasons. The primary reason is that it stops allies from killing targets.

The secondary reason is the absurd damage levels it does. Unmodded, and starting from an entirely-fresh combo-counter, a single cast of Bladestorm can deal up to 203,125 finisher damage.

Eh, maybe. I'd have to see it and judge myself. Not to mention the popularity of a game doesn't necessarily mean it's flawless.

Regardless, point stands, and Warframe most definitely doesn't do it right.