On the Topic of Banshee

[Scar.Heart]

I believe Banshee only needs two real tweaks/overhauls, as she is otherwise fine.

Silence - This ability does wonders in Stealth, and maybe that's why it sucks so much in combat.

I feel Silence is fine as is, and that it is augment which needs tweaking.

 

Silence Augment -

A: Lethal Delay

• During combat, enemies inside Silence radius will take longer to target and attack Banshee and company.
• Enemies leaving Silence are momentarily staggered..
• Banshee deals x1.5/x2/x2.5/x3 melee damage to all enemies inside Silence Radius.

This is essentially bringing most of the Silence abilities during stealth to open combat, adding a stagger for leaving Silence.

The melee damage is take-or-leave for me, as I couldn't decide if that was too much to add.

 

B: Savage SIlence (2.0)

• Enemies stunned by Silence are susceptible to Finisher damage in the form of a stealth attack. (no change made)
• Finisher damage stays the same, 150%/200%/250%/300%. (no change made)
• Enemies killed by the Stealth attack release a shockwave that recasts Silence's stun effect, ailing all enemies who are currently in Silence's radius.
• Banshee is allowed 2/4/6/8 kills that will proc Silence's stun 100% of the time to all foes in Silence's range. (not altered by mods)

This allows Silence to be both a defense and offense ability, as Silence's vanilla stun performs decent for evasive maneuvers, or can be recast for up to 8 successful kills in succession.

The offensive portion also acts as a semi-defense, since you're invincible during stealth attack animations.

 

The other overhaul/tweak I'd like to see is to her Sound Quake + Resonating Quake augment. However, I personally can't think of an alternative that isn't a reflection of another frame's abilities.

That's my two cents.

EDIT: Some words.

Edited September 30, 2016 by MagnusFury

[IceColdHawk]

The current effects of silence are simply not worth 75 energy. Recastable or not. It either gets reworked completely or get additional effects going for it and/or lower energy cost + recastability. And sound quake can get replaced completely for all i care.

[brainjelly2g0]

Even though Banshee can be killed by a particularly loud burp, her offensive capability and the CC Silence provides is incredible. Recasting it would help, but to be frank, its not required to make her good.

[FreezerFlare]

Banshee is one of my favorite frames.

and I can say that she is nearly perfect and all she needs is for her 3 to be recastable.

If her 3 becomes recastable her survivability issues will go way down and she won't be known as Glass Cannon anymore, because her main CC to protect her self isn't just a one time thing every 20/30 seconds

[Obviousclone]

savage silence banshee is bad

 

it's an ojectively worse version of radial blind excalibur. It costs more, the cc is a fixed duration, it's not a onehanded action, it's on a frame with objective weaker defensive stats. The only aspect that it wins in, is it's not line of sight dependant, which doesn't matter if your strategy is melee finishers. oh, and radial blind beats savage silence without even running a single mod.

 

And when you do mod for savage silence, you gotta either

1.gut your duration to be able to recast. This ruins every other ability. Want to shred amor? well if you run this build that armor shred will also last for 1 second. Want to open up weakpoints for a massive damage amp? well this build also ruins that strategy by gutting duration. Want to be able to cast soundquake? well running negative duration makes that 12 energy drain per second even worse. 

2.gut your range (keep the duration, walk in and out to toggle enemies). again this nerfs literally all 3 of her other abilities.

 

and cc wise, resonating quake goes up to 100m. It also doesn't drop off enemies after 2 seconds (forcing you to do some weird dance to keep enemies stunned) and instead keeps enemies in a perpetual stunlock until they die, or banshee cancels the ability.

If Silence had the ability to be recasted (which should be how it should have been in the first place given Ember is allowed to recast accelerant even when she has the cast speed buff) , then sure it would be fine. She might even be the perfect frame with a tool for every scenario if that's the case. Or better yet, give it a weapon jam that forces enemies to melee. Suddenly you have synergy with her 1 which is a great anti melee tool (and doesn't see much use outside of fighting the infested). Then she would be unstoppable since her only weakness is the absence of good defensive tools, because as it stands, silence as a cc lasts too short to be a good defensive tool.

Edited September 30, 2016 by Obviousclone
12 energy drain per second

[Morganthe76]

no1 use banshee allot 

if you see req chat its always the same frames that dominate all 

Frost Trinity nova and necros 

all other frames are pretty much useless and most dont even want you in there team as long you have 1 off those frames 

all other frames are good for lvl up to get mastery higher up and thats it 

[(PSN)Avulsed76]

For those WHO says she´s squizee.

I have YET to die/fail in a mission going with banshee in any mission (even gone solo) on sorties or long missions (survival, and such). I use rage, quick thinking + jat kittag, and then different build depending on factions/missions. SIlence used to some extent.

Banshee used 17% of all my frames.

She´s is perfect as she is now IMO.

[Sziklamester]

For Banshee mostly need only tweaks on armor and on health\shield Stats and replace or make her ulti mobile and reduce the Energy eats because that is by far the most Energy eating ultimate in game. If They remove it then They should add an ability which works similar like nyx second or equinox day form ultimate.

[Urska]

tbh, they just need to redo her fully like limbo.... she is only good doing 4th afk with max range n eff.... every thing else is just far behind any other frame.... she should be reworked before shes primed by that wont happen.... limbo be done around that time if lucky...

[ZectorV1]

On 9/29/2016 at 11:34 PM, (PS4)Avulsed76 said:

For those WHO says she´s squizee.

I have YET to die/fail in a mission going with banshee in any mission (even gone solo) on sorties or long missions (survival, and such). I use rage, quick thinking + jat kittag, and then different build depending on factions/missions. SIlence used to some extent.

Banshee used 17% of all my frames.

She´s is perfect as she is now IMO.

I have to ask how that's even possible, seeing as how even ice chroma has a rough time come 60 minutes into a survival 

[AuroraSonicBoom]

Recastable silence is a trash fix for a frame that requires so much attention to stay alive with. Plus, there's little to no synergy between her abilities, something that's in dire need of fixing. Just like I'm an opponent of giving her any more armor, shields or health, I don't want to see Silence becoming a panic spam skill like accelerant. The fact that her 3 has such a little effect on generic combat opens up the possibility of giving the ability more debuffing effects without making it blatantly OP, while at the same time allowing most of her other skills to benefit from it. What's her 1 and 4 good for? Staggering and knocking down. What does her 3 do? Mess with the enemy's sense of hearing. The rather obvious connection here is that if her 3 would debuff enemies to be easier staggered and knocked down, while also taking longer to recover form those effects, her 1 and 4 would become more powerful for it.

Quake being stationary isn't a problem at all, since it teaches you not to stand in the fracking open if you want to not get hit. What is a problem, though, is that it lacks interaction, so giving it an additional mechanic to either do even more damage in a cone while in Quake, push back enemies or similar with your mouse 1 would keep the integrity of the skill intact while allowing players do actually do something while having it active.

[(PSN)Tactless_Ninja]

On 9/29/2016 at 10:45 AM, Zectorcop said:

Her four could use a bit of a rework though. I don't see anything it does that Vauban or nyx do far far better in their 4s, and banshee is pretty much a free kill during it.

I'm sorry, but wat? She can shut down entire maps by herself. Every mobile defense I've been on with a Banshee on the team has been pre-nerf Mirage levels of inactivity.

On 9/29/2016 at 11:30 AM, (PS4)godlysparta said:

 I mean for late game content like sorties. In sorties, she'll get one shotted and run out of revives if you don't carry her. Unlike other frames, she literally has no defensive abilities. Ash has his invisibility, Nova has her slow, Trinity has heals. What does Banshee have? A push and silence that barely prevents enemies from one shotting you.

Just going to point out here Trinity's survivability is from link and the damage reduction from using blessing since her armor is nearly non-existent. Can't heal yourself if you're already bleeding out from your health doing a nosedive. Also Zephyr is another frame who has piss poor armor and relies on turbulence to live.

PS. I think originally Banshee's survivability like most low armor frames was supposed to be from shields (she's pictured right on them), but shields suck so yeah....

Edited October 1, 2016 by (PS4)Tactless_Ninja

[(XBOX)freakytiki3]

Silence is great provides some stealth and alot of CC really helps keep Banshee up and murdering

I agree with original post Soundquake needs the most work

Edited October 1, 2016 by (XB1)freakytiki3

[SenorClipClop]

Soundquake could use some looking to make more interesting and relevant.

Recastable Silence would be much too powerful. Imagine being able to stun an entire room of enemies over and over, whenever you wanted for as long as you wanted. Recastable Silence would be Blind Mirage levels of broken.

[EinheriarJudith]

11 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

Soundquake could use some looking to make more interesting and relevant.

Recastable Silence would be much too powerful. Imagine being able to stun an entire room of enemies over and over, whenever you wanted for as long as you wanted. Recastable Silence would be Blind Mirage levels of broken.

CC in this game is a huge problem. it is an absolute power reason being it can trivialize content and remove the threat of death. DE wont even touch enemy scaling because they would have to take a pass at CC.

I dont know why the have her tagged as a stealth frame all of her powers move toward team play. she is god mode in a squad.

[TaylorsContraction]

On 09/29/2016 at 10:53 AM, Silence00 said:

I feel like Silence is largely useless. Stealth gameplay is completely dominated by invisibility. The enemy AI is terrible enough that it does make stealthy banshee viable, but it is still subpar in every way to a true stealth frame. Side benefit of silencing weapons.... really? That's awful as well. 

In a group mob oriented shooter like Warframe, a skill like silence falls by the wayside to superior skills like invisibility. I would suggest removing silence and replacing it with something that offers her some form of TANGIBLE defense. Her fragility is her largest problem and while I agree that being able to re-cast silence would be NICE, I think that overall the ability is a wasted slot. 

 

P.S. I understand the augment for Silence exists... but anyone properly building Banshee is going to have 1-2 mod slots filled with Vitality / Redirection along with the basics (flow, continuity, etc). Modding her properly is difficult as is, let alone trying to shoe-horn a VERY situational and unnecessary augment in there as well. 

As someone who runs stealth missions using banshee and silence I strongly disagree with your point of view.

First of all if I run stealth with silence, I need to kill the few enemies I come across. They generally die without ever knowing what hit them. Conversely, stealth abilities allow you to just run passed the enemies as is they aren't even there and only focus on the objective.

I see this all the time when running spy missions. Players just bring Loki and run to the vaults ignoring everything on their way while I methodically eliminate enemies as I make my own way to a vault. It's just different play styles, do you want to sneak around and be stealthy, or do you prefer to just stand in front of an enemy while invisible?

Invisibility means you don't have to be stealthy, it's like a false sense of stealth. It is effortless,  at worst you have to make sure that when  your 30sec.  invis runs out you have the energy  to recast it and no one is around to spot you.  Energy siphon + zenurik make this a  breeze even with lower energy sortie condition.    Occasionally I pull out my Loki for stealth runs because I don't feel like thinking and  putting  effort into a  mission.

I personally do not enjoy that play style though, whereas banshee silence stealth is a lot more fun for me.

More on topic, I agree that sound quake (sq) is the only ability on banshee that needs to be changed. Not because it is too weak or too strong, but because it is too afk'ish. You cast the ability and then don't do anything for the next 30 seconds to 3 minutes. In normal gameplay the only time I use sq is when a teammate is being revived and it offers some cc in the meantime. On bere I use sq to kill everything while watching a movie. In raids I use sq to lock down stage 2 enemies during which time I'm watching a movie. In farms I use a  short range sq to kill things while watching a movie. Basically outside of case 1, I press 4 and don't do anything else for the duration of the channel. It's boring and I think DE is trying to get rid of abilities that play the game for you. SQ is definitely an example of such an ability.

So how do we change it? Well banshee doesn't have direct damage abilities besides sq so let's keep it on the damage side. For one I would get rid of the channeling affect, rather it becomes a fire and forget ability as banshee needs to be on the move to survive. It would be nice if it synergized with silence and sonar.

So then upon casting sq a  shockwave    emanates  from banshee's location dealing some damage. Enemies that are marked with sonar spots take additional damage from sq (though not necessarily the damage bonus from sonar). Enemies are staggered by the shockwave (offering a little cc) and if enemies are in range of silence they are further disoriented and suffer a 50% accuracy reduction for 10 seconds. I'd be pretty happy with that. Perhaps that is too op but whatever.

[SerenitT]

I support some QOL changes to silence, but looking at this from the other side of the table, having a recastable silence sounds really really op. I don't know what the max range is on silence with overextended/stretch off of the top of my head, but I know that it is not small by any stretch of the imagination. The issue then becomes that silence goes through walls and is a quick cast, massive range recastable cc. It would effectively be discoball mirage stun all over again. I'm all for changes to silence, but I'm not sure if making it recastable is the solution unless there is some other tradeoff, If it is recastable, it should have something like a minimum time before recast is available or something like that.

[(PSN)MrNishi]

9 hours ago, SerenitT said:

I support some QOL changes to silence, but looking at this from the other side of the table, having a recastable silence sounds really really op. I don't know what the max range is on silence with overextended/stretch off of the top of my head, but I know that it is not small by any stretch of the imagination. The issue then becomes that silence goes through walls and is a quick cast, massive range recastable cc. It would effectively be discoball mirage stun all over again. I'm all for changes to silence, but I'm not sure if making it recastable is the solution unless there is some other tradeoff, If it is recastable, it should have something like a minimum time before recast is available or something like that.

Max range is 47-50m (50m with Coaction Drift)

 

The reason Silence being recastable without at least a 3sec cool down would be OP is because Silence stun animation can be refreshed indefinitely....easy to see with 3or more Banshee's all using min-duration max range Silence. Just head ache bobbing animation resetting constantly.

{Insert line Break}

 

¶They could allow Sonic Boom have synergy with Silence by allowing Silence to reset the 3sec stun rather than fling enemies away. (Currently counter intuitive if using Melee Silence build with Sonic Boom)

- So Synergy would be a Root with stun instead of ragdolling enemies

For Silence I would like the ability to be recast after 3sec, allowing a spam Silence build to work with her duration based Sonic Fracture and Sonar abilities/augments.

(I wish normal Silence gave Stealth Melee multiplier bonus without Finisher prompt...since Melee finishers are not optional or treated as context action button)*

For Savage Silence: I feel it should have a built-in 5m fixed finisher-setup Aura. This would allow for Finisher setup for the entire duration of Savage Silence while still allowing a positive range and positive duration build to synergize with Sonic Fracture and Sonar/Resonance.

(Savage Silence would still have 3sec stun duration over normal UI listed Silence AoE Aura range, but would also have a fixed 5m stun Finisher prompt.)

 

 

 

I'm in agreement that SoundQuake needs a change. Seems totally oddball that DE chose to allow Augment to make SoundQuake a perfect AFK map lockdown tool.

Resonating Quake can achieve 100m range with maximized efficiency (8 energy per sec and deal a couple thousand damage per tick at full stack) Granted Aerial Drones/Osprey are immune**

Sound Quake being tweaked to promote mobility would be awesome. Currently it feels handicapped without Augment and borderline broken with the Augment.

[(PSN)lhbuch]

Banshee is amazing but come on, making Silence recastable would not hurt at all.

[DrFail]

Even without the augment, Silence is useful. A lot of people seem to be under the impression that it is a stealth tool. And, as a stealth tool, it IS lackluster (What good is a subpar method of silencing your weapons on a Warframe whose passive is to have always silent weapons? 0 thought was put into Banshee's passive, basically). But that's fine, because as anything else it's pretty darn good. Even if you don't have a silence build, casting silence now means you have a mobile stun field following you around. It will probably only stun every enemy once unless you build around spamming it, but honestly that's all you need it to do unless you're camping an objective. Need to cross the room over that pool of enemies that would shred you instantly? Cast silence, bullet jump past them. Done. Safe. Even if enemies try to swarm into the room from an uncovered side entrance they get hit, and you're out of the room and on the way to your objective before they have recovered. Stuck in a corner with enemies all around you? You could cast 1, but what if it's a situation where you arn't sure your 1 will get all of them? Cast silence. Jump out of the horde while they stagger. Safe. Leaving a survival mission with one teammate that's really low on health and you don't want to risk them falling down and extending the mission? Cast silence and stick beside them and pretty much nobody will try to prevent you two from enjoying your romantic seaside dolphin jump date to extraction.

 

her 1 and her 3 and knowing when to use each is what allows Banshee, one of the squishiest warframes, to survive encounters she can't use her sonar'd weapons to instakill her way out of. Both, as well as sonar and arguably sound quake, have a good place in her kit with a general use build and, honestly, that's far more than most warframes can claim. 

 

TLDR Even unaugmented silence is in a fine spot once you know how to use it and know how to keep moving with the parkour system. It's just mislabeled and not made of cheese.

Edited October 4, 2016 by DrFail

[EinheriarJudith]

9 hours ago, (PS4)lhbuch said:

Banshee is amazing but come on, making Silence recastable would not hurt at all.

i posted earlier that CC is a problem because it is stronger than anything else. being able to CC lock a whole room and every enemy entering the room should never be a thing period. DE need to move away from powers that trivializes content and removes the threat of death. sound quake already does this and that is another bad thing. she is squad god mode reguardless of low defenses since the enemies cannot even mount an attack for it to matter. 

[Viedra_Lavinova]

Don't touch Banshee, she is fine how she is. (Her prime could get like 50-65 total armor and that would help a little) Recastable Silence is generally considered the only thing Banshee needs.

• IMO, if I was going to rework silence, I would make the stun period dependent on duration. (Enemies leaving the silence aura would lose the stun after 1second.) And rename the ability into something more accurate at what it does. As for the augment, if I was to rework it, melee damage is increased the longer an enemy is stunned. SIlence would be made to work with a Sonar/Resonance build, and even a Sonic Fracture build.

"Don't fix what isn't broken," is something we can all learn from.

Edited October 5, 2016 by Viedra_Lavinova

[(PSN)ExploserLord]

Silence is a formidable stunlock ability that you can almost spamming. Being surronder by many 200+ ennemies and able to revive a fallen comrade without stress, it's just epic ! Lot of people are surprised by this. This is a great survival ability.