What Warframe abilities would you change?

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

7 minutes ago, (PS4)BrutalReaper32 said:

what?
how exactly would you change?

Many abilities would be able to do more than just one thing as some do now.

Energy economy.

The reduction of power denial mechanics, the need for and use of.

Etc

 

 

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

OOOH! A shiny thread appeared! Now this one I can get my teeth into.

Ash:

Spoiler

 

Blade Storm has a lot of controversy around it purely because it's an ability so good that it out-shines his others. DE have already said they're looking into maybe a balance pass on it, but let's be honest; Finisher damage with a guaranteed bleed proc is very strong, much stronger than it should be for an ability that has little to no crowd control and a built-in invulnerability throughout. Slash damage might be the fix for this, maybe in itself balancing out that bleed proc, and add a little CC back in by guaranteeing puncture procs as well so survivors deal less damage.

His abilities are great, I just wish people had more reason to rely on them and less to press 4 constantly.

 

Atlas:

Spoiler

 

Petrify is a great ability for what it does, however it doesn't actually do a better job than just... outright attacking would do unless enemies happen to get very bunched up. Even then a Landslide would scatter the group and deal damage just as fast. He's also reduced to a state of Chroma Screaming while doing so, which isn't as fun since he's not a dragon frame, so I would make it a tap cast with stages of slow to petrification. Tap for a cone-of-effect cast that slows by a percent, again for a secondary slow, and again for a complete slow. Balance the new insta-CC slow function with that much higher cost of casting three times.

He may be one of the less used frames, but I think with his walls, his Rumblers and his Landslide he's in a pretty good place, boosting the Petrify ability would put him in with more Support and make him much more viable overall.

 

Banshee:

Spoiler

 

I love her to bits, especially now that her deluxe skin has managed to get rid of those canoe feet... (honestly... what are thoooooose?!) But there's one quality of life fix I would give her. Sound Quake, the best stun-lock CC in the game, has one fatal flaw (apart from it not hitting flying enemies...) it's that her recovery animation and the recovery animation for surviving enemies is the same amount of time. She gets up and that heavy gunner is ready to fire at her again.

Sound Quake inflicts impact and blast procs constantly to all enemies. Unfortunately those impact procs override the blast ones, so enemies only ever get staggered. My plan? Simply make sure that, on deactivation, the last proc is a guaranteed blast one, so that enemies are knocked down and Banshee has time to get up and start moving before the animation is done.

 

Chroma:

Spoiler

 

Say it with me:

Everlasting Ward should not be an Augment. Everlasting Ward should not be an Augment. Everlasting Ward should not be an Augment. I mean, seriously, this is how the ability should have worked from the beginning, and a band-aid augment that reduces the effectiveness of other builds was the wrong way to handle it.

 

Ember:

Spoiler

Honestly I'm not sure what I would actually change about Ember, she excels at what she was created for; burning through low-to-mid level enemies with ease and being a great damage dealer. The change to Accelerant that gave it some CC was a good choice because it was under-used before and allows her to go for a less efficient and more damaging build. With the recent changes to the Void system there is no more 'end game long run' content necessary to pad into, so she's great for pretty much anything in the star chart. If anything... a buff to Fireball? AoE fire proc from point of impact rather than just the damage? Actually I might say to make the base range of Fire Blast's ring of fire would be better. It's currently very, very small, and relies on placing one at the entrance to an area and using it to slow down and add dps to mobs as they arrive, there's very little utility to that part of the cast without a bigger base range.

Equinox:

Spoiler

 

Not played with her much since release, great augments, great general abilities. I hear a lot of people saying that it's tough losing the stacks when you transform, but really... that's a deliberate drawback used to prevent the power from just ramping up eternally.

I would extend the day/night transformation buffs so they apply on cast to a radius, letting a team in closer quarters (which they often are due to her other abilities) benefit from her transforming and promote use of the ability as an active buff source along with her regular buffs.

 

Excalibur:

Spoiler

Turret mode is fixed, so what could hope to benefit this frame? How about putting a better balance on the Radial Blind effect from the sliding attack during Exalted Blade? I would settle for actually keeping RB as RB and putting a better attack on his exalted slide attack. Maybe make the slide attack actually do a full radial slash that deals damage, and have it not cost the additional energy. It's already a drain ability, and casts are stronger with it, so why put additional cost on an automatic function?

Frost:

Spoiler

Uhh... now here's a frame I can't really touch. He's in a great place right now in terms of what he does and how he does it. The only, and I mean the only, change I can find worth mentioning is a visual indicator for his Globes. Currently the counter only counts the highest-health globe, so putting some kind of visual indicator on the skin of the globe to show a percentage of health would be great. Maybe cracks? Maybe have the roof drop out of it at 10%? Something to show to a Frost player that his globes over the other side of the tile is falling apart and it's just the one he's in that's fine.

Hydroid:

Spoiler

 

Poor Hydroid, from the unfortunate name, to the RNG style 1 cast, to the puddle mode that means he can't fight back? I really want to help this guy. There's actually full rework threads all over, so I can't say anything they don't say.

I'd make Tempest Barrage follow an actual pattern, that way a player can cast it at enemies and expect it to hit them, and not wait for as long as the third or fourth 'drop' to knock them down some time after they needed to not be shot at.

And I don't know how you'd fix Undertow without changing it completely, a large puddle trap that also hides the player and makes them not take damage sounds great on paper, but in practice is very un-interactive and frustrating to play as, because you aren't mitigating any damage to your team (without an augment) and you only very slowly affect enemies if they happen to run over you. You'd have to speak to the players that know him better on this one.

 

Inaros:

Spoiler

Inaros is too simple right now, he's a superb tank, and there's only a few quality of life fixes that would really benefit him. People have reported all the bugs, but you'll notice a distinct lack of rework threads around here to try and make him better. At what he does he's pretty good at it, and all his abilities compliment it.

Ivara:

Spoiler

 

Oh another one I love, any frame that can be taken straight out of the foundry and for an hour on the high end survivals (this was actually before the Star Chart rework changed some of the levels around, and before Mastery rank affected the base mod points) with just an aura and a couple of basic mods, that's a great stealth frame. She's also in a great place, being one of the newer and more diversely kitted ones, so what would I change?

Probably Navigator and Noise Arrow. Navigator would be a far more used ability if it was able to grab the multi-shot from weapons, including her Artemis Bow. Locking the distance between projectiles at the point of cast, navigating as the 'main' shot, but dragging the other projectiles in tow. This might seem very strong, but for an energy-drain ability that leaves Ivara vulnerable, I think it balances out. And Noise Arrow currently has a slightly over-powered status on some modes since the distraction effect makes many enemies completely forget their base objectives after the distraction ends. For example on an Interception, if you are solo and invisible, distracting a wave of enemies can make them forget entirely that they are supposed to be capturing the points, and so wander around 'on patrol' as if this was an Exterminate and they were un-alert. Fixing this would be a nerf, but a good one.

 

Limbo:

Spoiler

 

The current go-to for Rescue missions annnnd very little else. For this guy I'll point you in the direction of the rework threads, so many ideas, and DE has him under the glass for a rework themselves. Let's see how that turns out.

For personal preference? The benefits of the Rift need to be better for a player than just 'you can see me, but not hit me'. Throwing an enemy into the rift does knock them down and isolate them from allies allowing you to finish them off, but for many stronger enemies this is actually a little suicidal. Cataclysm is a great replacement for snowglobe, except there's no way to shoot out of it. Abilities, yes, but your weapons are on lock-down until the enemy gets within stabbing range. And Rift Surge only affects Limbo, there's no benefit for allies from it, so Cataclysm is still not very beneficial to a team even with that cast.

Either change up how he mechanically interacts with the Rift plane, how he switches himself, allies and enemies to and from it, to make it more fluid and able to flow with gameplay, or change the purpose of doing so to more deliberately isolate/assassinate point targets, protect/heal allies and protect objectives.

 

Loki:

Spoiler

 

The stealth frame. The utility frame. Mr Endgame (if endgame were still much of a thing). His weakness in nullifiers and stray bullets and not much else. With an aggro-draw CC, a defensive invisibility, a teleport troll and a permanent ranged damage debuff on enemies... how does he not fit in with any squad?

Well... maybe we could... no, Safeguard Switch does that... Or maybe we... no, Irradiating Disarm does that... Damn... How about... no, Hushed Invisibility does that...

No, I can't think of anything I'd change about him. Loki does what Loki does, and it's so good you wouldn't change it.

 

Mag:

Spoiler

 

Recently reworked, recently made so that her one completely-overpowered 2 ability was replaced with a better-able-to-be-balanced powerful 2 ability. A lot of people complained about this, because Shield Polarise scaled infinitely, which is exactly why it was changed. Now Magnetise is both a point-CC, a damage dealer and a shield, while Shield Polarise is relegated to a team shield restore, limited damage and an extra source of damage for Magnetise.

The only thing I'd point out is that enemies that sprint, like Chargers, can actually get out of Magnetise very easily. It's not a very good point CC if the enemies are able to get out of it, and I'd make the draw on enemies that are fully inside the ability stronger so that they can't actually escape. If they're outside, sure, no need for the draw to be higher, but once they're in, I want them to stay in.

Shield Polarise, on the other hand... the armour fragments it drops? Those are as unreliable as I think I've seen any ability be. I've seen Magnetise simply ignore dozens of them when cast over an area containing them, and what should have become a literal blender deals no more damage than usual because they aren't being picked up. A reliability pass on this would be appreciated.

 

Mesa:

Spoiler

 

With the update to Shooting Gallery, I'm now happy with this ability. With the mod-scaling and the manual targeting on Peacemaker, I'm now happy with this ability. Shatter Shield I've always been good with, it lasts right up into the highest Star Chart levels and is essential to running with her.

Ballistic Battery, on the other hand, is a remarkably weak ability. Deal damage to fill the counter to 100% and then unleash a single shot that does 100% bonus damage? What if we're using something that has low-individual damage and high rate of fire to deal damage? What if we're using a beam weapon? Doesn't make sense.

I would make this a build-the-counter and then release to charge the weapon for a duration, meaning that the boost would be viable on any weapon and not just on shotguns, snipers or the tonkor.

 

Mirage:

Spoiler

 

Woe is a cast of Sleight of Hand. As it stands, this ability is a literal waste of energy. Enemies have far better things to do when a Mirage is running around than go inspect a locker, like shooting her clones, or having their brains shot out.

A great suggestion was to have it steal an enemy's drops before they're killed, like Prowl does, except without making a second drop on death. You literally make their loot vanish from their pockets. Or have all their guns magically unloaded forcing a reload animation on all enemies in range (not quite a Radial Disarm, but close enough).

 

Nekros:

Spoiler

 

Again with the recent reworks, even a prime version, he's in a great place again. A lot of people hate the change to Desecrate, meaning that even though the ability is now a guaranteed effect on all enemies, the roll of 'no loot' is higher per enemy and so the effective loot drop per run is down. On the other hand, you now fire and forget it, able to toggle it on and just carry on your game, terrifying or raising shadows as you wish.

Shadows, though, needs a way to turn it off, and an easier sustain. I like the new Shadows, I think having a smaller army of the best units is far more effective than a crowd of whatever happens to be on the floor at the time. I think being able to heal them and summon them back close is a great change that cuts casting time and is effective management of your resources. But the health drain needs to be toned down and being able to turn them off and re-summon better ones is a real issue at the higher end of the star chart. I spend almost as much time healing my shadows as I used to do casting Desecrate, it's not a fun shift.

 

Nezha:

Spoiler

Mini-Rhino is fast and annoying to all enemies, with a personal sustain of life-steal, a radial and a ground-trap CC and a copy of Iron Skin, sliding frame is very good at sliding. I honestly need to play him a lot more to get any changes for him. And I certainly haven't seen very many threads complaining about a lacking in his abilities so far.

Nova:

Spoiler

 

My magical girl frame needs more ribbons that move when she sprints... And as for actual changes, I did see a very good suggestion earlier, that her Wormhole is an instant teleport for her, leaving it open to others behind her, but transporting her on cast. That is a great idea for improvement.

Other than that, her 1. Needs something to make it more useful as a defensive cast. It has very low damage and a stun on it, but I think this should be a longer stun, one that interrupts other animations to save her in case of a leaper or charger, a melee swing or an Ancient roar. I've seen people suggest a knock down, but this might be too strong for melee finishers.

 

Nyx:

Spoiler

 

She's just been given a 'ha-ha, I'm invincible' augment. How unfair is that? Regardless. Her one makes a minion, her 3 is hardcore CC and her 4 was already a very strong aggro-draw and damage dealer. As a direct damage ability, though, her 2 is on par with other frames' 1 casts. Her passive and the chance of a rad proc is also a good boost to it, so a cast of 2 has the chance to deal damage, proc radiation and disarm an enemy.

I might be tempted to buff this. Maybe make the damage finisher instead of slash, so she guarantees that damage isn't mitigated by armour or shields, but I mostly say this because it's 'psychic' bolts, not 'energy' bolts, she's directly attacking the mind. Or she should be.

 

Oberon:

Spoiler

 

See the hundreds of rework threads.

Smite's rad proc does not cause enemies in the area to re-target the new threat, making it a very poor implementation of the ability. Otherwise it'

Hallowed ground is too small an ability. I like it, don't get me wrong, I like what it does. It just encourages players to clump up in a tiny rectangle. In theme it's great, in practice it's not something allies or even Oberon can count on.

Renewal is, still, too ineffective as a healing cast. It has travel time, meaning that it has to be cast almost pre-emptively, the initial heal is fair, but the energy drain as it continues to heal is often debilitating or, if efficiency is high, simply caps off and stops the moment they reach full health, not using the full duration to continue the buff. Even if you remove these limitations, he won't match Trinity for healing, her niche is still hers, so there's no need for it to be quite so... clunky.

And Reckoning is perhaps the only ability of his that functions as intended.

 

Rhino:

Spoiler

 

The starter that isn't a starter. He charges, he armours, he buffs allies, he CCs. Not much you can do here. Not much we want to do here after the damage-absorb buff to Iron Skin.

 

Saryn:

Spoiler

 

After her biggest change, not much has happened to Lady Infectious here, but a few things might make her better, especially since it would make ease-of-use on her abilities that much better.

The trouble is that Molt is such an essential part of her kit. Casting Spores on it is half-cost, and the aggro draw on it is perfect, and the interaction with Miasma makes it a deadly time bomb.

But it's really weak... I've frequently found that Molt will die before I can even turn around and cast spores on it. It's nice because I then have a whole group of Toxin procs on things that can then have Spores and spread both Toxic and Viral everywhere... but it's sad because the ability works so well in tandem. It's also sad because immediately everything starts shooting me again, not the Molt. So I would propose a form of Iron Skin boost to it, a damage absorb phase.

To enable this, change how the damage is calculated from a percentage of the health to the actual value of the health. Gaining more health then means that on destruction molt will deal more damage based on how much it absorbed. And, if we simply change the forced detonation that's triggered every time you re-cast, or cast Miasma, to a slight duration of molt balance (so casting immediately after absorb phase versus casting three seconds after Molt finishes absorb phase), you could then have it deal damage based on points of health remaining if you detonate early, and points of health lost if you leave it up for CC longer.

Casting Molt for CC is still viable because the longer it lasts, the longer the CC and the health points lost actually boosts the overal damage on detonation. Casting Molt purely to spread the procs and to boost the damage on Miasma is far more viable because Molt is lasting long enough to cast Miasma, and an instant-combo style of dropping Molt and then Miasma deals the full damage that Molt can deal on top of the Miasma cast.

 

Titania:

Spoiler

 

Newest frame and currently most... interesting in terms of Quality of Life.

Tribute needs a range buff. Entangle, I'm looking at you for this, a ten meter radius is not enough to provide an adequate buff for a team, especially when it takes so much effort to build up the buff and maintain it.

Lantern needs to slow the momentum of whoever is targeted so they don't fly off into the stratosphere. Currently they expect us to just know that the enemy inside is invulnerable for the duration and so we can shoot them around the map as a portable distraction, but really they shouldn't be floating away so easily in the first place.

 

Trinity:

Spoiler

I regret to say I don't play a lot of Trin. I've been trying to come up with changes for her abilities, but sadly there's not a lot I can think of that isn't directly un-doing the changes DE have recently made to her.

Valkyr:

Spoiler

 

Kitty's been under the glass a few times, but it's hard to nerf Invincibility without ridiculous costs. A switch I've seen is to do away with the energy drain altogether and use Health drain as a marker, not affected by efficiency or duration. Cast it, drain health in a berserker rage (like actual berserkers from the legends), kill things with life-stealing claws to stay alive. The basic enemy scaling, armour and so on, will naturally cap the cast, and simply making it so that Valkyr can't gain health from sources other than orbs or her claws would mean the drain was a significant effect. Also very easy for DE to balance by adjusting how much health is regained by damage/kills and how much drain per second happens.

Add in a natural cancel once health reaches 1, so she doesn't kill herself, but can be killed by everything else if she's too close, and you have a Berserker ability.

 

Vauban:

Spoiler

 

What's with all the changes to these guys?! It's hard to change stuff that's only just been changed!

 

Volt:

Spoiler

Apply his passive better. Currently it's a charge of energy that adds flat damage to his next attack. Make it a charge that adds percentile multiplicative damage to his next attack and you'll have something worth charging up.

Wukong:

Spoiler

Rebalance Primal Fury and give Iron Jab a longer base range. Primal Fury is, arguably, the worst of the Exalted abilities so far, the combos are very limited and the damage scaling doesn't do nearly enough to warrant using this over other regular melee staffs.

Zephyr:

Spoiler

 

Ahhhh, here's my girl. This is the one I can really get into. I love her to bits.

Despite what many say, Flying would not make Zephyr better. I really wouldn't. It would shrink her available kit. Also her passive is not the Nightmare Mode low gravity penalty that people think it is, because she has direction control in the air, unlike every other frame. Point-of-contention, she's also more mobile in the air than Titania, so she will never be obsolete (test: put the two frames in any large room, charge them up, put Titania in flight mode, ask them to reach the other side, the roof, a corner, any part of it without touching the floor. Zephyr gets there faster.) because what Titania has is air control, able to move in all axis freely, but Zephyr has air mobility.

Moving on. Changes.

Most people think that her kit needs parts of it scrapping and replace, merging parts together or doing all sorts of things to make her fit the game they think she should be playing. I've been recently converted to the church of 'DE doesn't take stuff away unless it's obsolete, DE adds stuff and changes stuff'.

Her parkour needs to include her passive, she has low gravity, Aim Glide reduces gravity, combining these should provide limited time null-gravity. So jumping in the air and aim-gliding = no downward momentum for up to X seconds. Likewise, falling at speed, aim gliding slows normal frames, should drastically slow Zephyr. It's not flight, but it's using her Air control to augment existing functions.

Tailwind is not obsolete, just under-incorporated and a little under-powered. Adding in wall interactions with it is the first step to making it flow with Parkour 2.0, adding a knock down to anything in damage radius is the part that will re-power the cast to current standards. By wall interactions I mean that hitting a wall during Tailwind shouldn't be an accident. A hard impact should trigger a latch animation, which can be extended by pressing Aim (turning it into a regular wall latch), or changed into a wall run by holding Jump. Similarly, a shallow impact should be able to extend into a wall run just like a bullet jump can be extended if you hit a wall there. Make the ability play into Parkour, not be an either/or decision. The knock down on the ability would also create an exit from tight spaces, where normally enemies would block the way in crowds.

Dive Bomb is not obsolete, just under-powered. A buff to the base range, a guaranteed knock down on all enemies apart from bosses, and a nav-mesh AoE height extension so that it hits things that are up ramps or stairs within the range too, these things will fix the base ability. Additionally, buffing the max-height effect so it causes a guaranteed ragdoll effect on enemies in range, except bosses, would further make it appealing to reach that height.

An addition to Dive Bomb would be a ground-pound style cast when on the ground, leaping forward and casting a cone-of-effect knock down on a range that is built up by holding down the button to charge. The balance to the time it takes to get height, is to make it be a weaker base cast on the ground, the balance to height building the range is to make a longer charge do better range. And ensuring that the ground attack is done on small jumps too (less than three meters, say) means that the Heavy Impact mod can't be used to spam the AoE effect of the Dive, but that adding Heavy Impact does boost the damage of the Dive when you use that.

Two sides to the same ability, both do CC knockdown, but have different situational applications. 

Turbulence should never be changed, only get better. I've recently noticed that it doesn't seem to affect Helion rockets or the Comba variant Detrons that have seeker bullets, this should be fixed for certain.

Tornado is limited by it's free roaming. Putting a range on the cast, affected by mods, would allow it to be tweaked to fix all the other complaints with this ability. Loot and enemies wouldn't be scattered around (I would have them thrown straight up for target practice, and to fall back into the ability range), the funnels can have faster enemy seek, and target any enemy inside the cast range, instead of moving beyond range of enemies and never coming back because nothing comes into their personal seek range, and you can then have a cancel on it, to allow active re-casting on other points. Most importantly, Tornado actually does great damage if you change the element type, this would allow it all to be delivered reliably instead of funnels missing their targets or enemies running right on by them.

Turn Tornado into a more concentrated Area Denial ability that enemies have to try and run the gauntlet to get to you through, something you can truly cast and then allow it to do its job, or wait for it to throw enemies up for you to skeet-shoot out of the air.

For Quality of Life, we can't shoot through it, why can enemies? Make the funnels block enemy fire as well as ours. For fun, have any player aim-gliding into a funnel launched up like the Lua agility puzzle! Tenno Trampoline!!

 

Annnd... I've run out of frames to look at... Ah well. Onwards!

[AuroraSonicBoom]

Since Banshee's has a probability to be looked at in the next months, I'd like to see some effects added to her skills. Sonic Boom should be able to destroy breakables and deflect slow projectiles like rockets while allowing to target specific body parts on enemies based on the part you looked at when you cast it. Silence should not become recastable but gain the effects of making enemies more vulnerable to blast and impact procs while making those that are staggered or knock downed take longer to get up proportionally to amount of power strength. Sound Quake should have the ability to send out a second, narrow wave of damage at the cost of more energy drain with your fire key that does more damage and procs.

[(PSN)carlosfiiUSA]

Chroma's Effigy changes

Reposting from another thread:

Chroma is a tank with a side of support, Effigy being one of his support abilities. The problem is, it's a costly drain ability that deals low damage to mid to high level enemies (anithing past lvl 30) and has an unreliable crowd control function, since you depend on elemental procs and it's radial attack that seems to trigger infrequently.

Instead of trying to fix Effigy's damage, give it more cc or make it synergise with his other abilities (all ideas focusing on keeping it as a defensive support ability) i thought about keeping Chroma's "warrior" role, and have effigy change him from armored knight to nimble warrior with a companion. Instead of being a stationary turret, effigy takes form of a kubrow/kavat armor that takes advantage of your pet's mods (in line with so many other abilities in the game, like excalibur's exalted blade, ivara's arthemis bow, etc...) and precepts. You can choose to focus on the usual vex armor/elemetal ward build, or make a build that gives you mobility without having to leave your effigy behind. The elemental breath would become an elemental boost to your pet's attack, and it can keep the radial attack. Maybe keep the turret function for when you have no pet equipped, or when you bring a sentinel.

Chroma's spectral scream

As is, it's probably Chroma's least used ability. But for now, I'd like to have the option (maybe through an augment) to turn it from a cone into a beam that deals more damage. Or at least let it be affected by Vex Armor bonus damage.