A Simple and Effective Ash/Bladestorm Rework, Plus Augment Babble

[DiabolusUrsus]

Alright, so we know that Blade Storm is going to be changed drastically in the relatively near future. I've seen a lot of ideas flying around and liked none of them, though forgive me if I missed the one thread that happened to touch on something similar.

I am of the personal opinion that Ash could use a more... extensive rework, but this one is going to be fairly conservative because that makes it simple and quick to implement.

Shuriken: Minimal changes, but changed to feature 1/1/2/3 (R0-4) Projectiles

Smokescreen: Unchanged.

Teleport: Unchanged.

Bladestorm: Casting provides a base 20s duration buff. While active, Ash's other abilities cost 0 energy (or greatly reduced; negotiable based on idea merit) with augmented effects.

• Shuriken: Projectile count doubled.
• Smokescreen: Creates a base 15m smoke cloud that lingers for the duration of the ability. Ash and allies within the cloud take 50% reduced ranged damage.
• Teleport: Teleport auto-finishes targeted enemies the same way Blade Storm currently attacks them for equivalent (or tweaked for balanced) damage.

Also, here are some ideas for Ash's augment mods:

• Seeking Shuriken: Reduces projectile count to 1, adds 3m punch-through. Enemies hit suffer the standard armor debuff.
• Field of Blades (Shuriken Augment): Projectile count increased to 10, damage decreased 75%, enemies slowed by 75% for 10s.
• Smoke Shadow: Allied cloak range matches stun range.
• Smoke Shield (Smoke Screen Augment): Smoke Screen is thrown at the crosshair instead of Ash's feet, and leaves a lingering smoke cloud that reduces enemy accuracy into and within the cloud.
• Fatal Stinging Teleport: To avoid overlap with Bladestorm, Stinging Teleport now releases 4 Shuriken projectiles wherever Ash teleports from.
• Rising Storm: Pretty sure it should be fine as-is, but I'm strapped for better ideas even though I find it kinda bland.

This rework (disregarding augments) addresses what I think are the two biggest issues with Blade Storm in its current iteration:

• The ability is now interactive, instead of a cutscene.
• Players can now stop whenever they need to go do something else... like revive an ally or focus on an objective.

It also has the added benefit of giving Ash support capabilities that don't require sacrificing slots to augments.

Thoughts?

 

[VergilDT]

I think Changing how BS functions would take away the point of the ability. Teleporting is an instantaneous movement, He's supposed to go teleporting enemy to enemy extremely fast "destroying nearby enemies" near instantly. They even gave him clones so the ability completes faster, and attack speed makes it faster as well. Confining it to how fast a player can target an enemy and acquire the next target drastically slows down the speed in which he can kill his targets, in Shadow of Mordor for example the shadow strike power works similarly to every suggested rework i've seen for far for BS, If you haven't played it, go to youtube and find a vid for it. sure it's effective and gets the job done for Talion but it's too slow for true combat teleporter. BS should be left as is in function but improved for the player using it. I've suggested before that it would be more entertaining to remain in place spawning 3 clones instead of 2 to complete the animation, retaining invincibility(perhaps going invis for the duration to make more sense as to why you can't be hit) so that the player can enjoy the use of bladestorm from the outside perspective instead of a slideshow of epilepsy.

I do however like the look of those shuriken augments. The teleport one doesn't seem as useful as a finisher for half a million damage(in my case at least), throwing the smoke bomb seems unneeded, If the Ash built for smokebomb to begin with then he can just tele then drop the smoke keeping with his teleporter theme, having it persist as a physical sight block, like i dunno smoke maybe lol, seems fair, instead of only making ash/allies invis.( after all it stands to reason they would be difficult to make out inside the smoke, the ability is called smokebomb but it just a alt invis currently).

Edited October 5, 2016 by VergilDT

[Chewarette]

Well, the easiest Bladestorm change would simply be to turn it into a energy-drain that, while active, makes your melee attack teleport you to the target you aim at (maybe with a xx% buff on melee effectiveness as well).

I don't really like the idea of Bladestorm buffing all 3 other spells. That doesn't really make a lot of sense imo. Moreover, with this change, Ash won't even have any attack that can kill more than 1 enemy at a time. Making him basically 100% useless on nearly all missions requiring you to kill billions of people

[(PSN)TertulSee]

9 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Alright, so we know that Blade Storm is going to be changed drastically in the relatively near future. I've seen a lot of ideas flying around and liked none of them, though forgive me if I missed the one thread that happened to touch on something similar.

I am of the personal opinion that Ash could use a more... extensive rework, but this one is going to be fairly conservative because that makes it simple and quick to implement.

Shuriken: Minimal changes, but changed to feature 1/1/2/3 (R0-4) Projectiles

Smokescreen: Unchanged.

Teleport: Unchanged.

Bladestorm: Casting provides a base 20s duration buff. While active, Ash's other abilities cost 0 energy (or greatly reduced; negotiable based on idea merit) with augmented effects.

• Shuriken: Projectile count doubled.
• Smokescreen: Creates a base 15m smoke cloud that lingers for the duration of the ability. Ash and allies within the cloud take 50% reduced ranged damage.
• Teleport: Teleport auto-finishes targeted enemies the same way Blade Storm currently attacks them for equivalent (or tweaked for balanced) damage.

Also, here are some ideas for Ash's augment mods:

• Seeking Shuriken: Reduces projectile count to 1, adds 3m punch-through. Enemies hit suffer the standard armor debuff.
• Field of Blades (Shuriken Augment): Projectile count increased to 10, damage decreased 75%, enemies slowed by 75% for 10s.
• Smoke Shadow: Allied cloak range matches stun range.
• Smoke Shield (Smoke Screen Augment): Smoke Screen is thrown at the crosshair instead of Ash's feet, and leaves a lingering smoke cloud that reduces enemy accuracy into and within the cloud.
• Fatal Stinging Teleport: To avoid overlap with Bladestorm, Stinging Teleport now releases 4 Shuriken projectiles wherever Ash teleports from.
• Rising Storm: Pretty sure it should be fine as-is, but I'm strapped for better ideas even though I find it kinda bland.

This rework (disregarding augments) addresses what I think are the two biggest issues with Blade Storm in its current iteration:

• The ability is now interactive, instead of a cutscene.
• Players can now stop whenever they need to go do something else... like revive an ally or focus on an objective.

It also has the added benefit of giving Ash support capabilities that don't require sacrificing slots to augments.

Thoughts?

 

While this change would be pretty awesome, it would make it harder for him to take enemies that can't be finishered such as sentient or ancient healers.

Also, Bladestorm is only good at lower levels because it doesn't scale with Covert Lethality! Well the reasons would be obvious enough.

One more thing, removing his Bladestorm would make it really hard for Ash to survive. He would be removed from the solo frame meta because he's incredibly squishy with no real escape without his Bladestorm. Other solo frames are tanky or have some way of avoiding all damage for a very long time. Ash does have invisibility but it's too short to do anything with and it's very costly. Also, he can't fit in Energy Siphon like Loki so pretty much it would be a complete rework to how Ash plays.

Overall, it would make Ash way too unbalanced which makes it pointless to rework him in the first place. Also, Teleport is literally his only late game ability. If you remove that, he's a goner. Making this rework would change his playstyle (to people who actually play him) far too much. He would need to be rebalanced overall and it would just make it too complicated.

[VergilDT]

1 hour ago, (PS4)godlysparta said:

While this change would be pretty awesome, it would make it harder for him to take enemies that can't be finishered such as sentient or ancient healers.

Also, Bladestorm is only good at lower levels because it doesn't scale with Covert Lethality! Well the reasons would be obvious enough.

One more thing, removing his Bladestorm would make it really hard for Ash to survive. He would be removed from the solo frame meta because he's incredibly squishy with no real escape without his Bladestorm. Other solo frames are tanky or have some way of avoiding all damage for a very long time. Ash does have invisibility but it's too short to do anything with and it's very costly. Also, he can't fit in Energy Siphon like Loki so pretty much it would be a complete rework to how Ash plays.

Overall, it would make Ash way too unbalanced which makes it pointless to rework him in the first place. Also, Teleport is literally his only late game ability. If you remove that, he's a goner. Making this rework would change his playstyle (to people who actually play him) far too much. He would need to be rebalanced overall and it would just make it too complicated.

There are a few things wrong here: Ancients can be finished(I do it all the time) BS is one of few abilities that scale to high level because it ignores mitigation. As far as Covert Lethality, it's not needed on ash unless you just really want to use a dagger, I use a dragon nikana(sword alone) with fatal teleport aug, finishers deal half a million damage to heavies at lv100 ignoring their armor/shields, and if for some reason they survive it (they don't) the first tick or two of the bleed proc will. Fatal Teleport is extremely powerful in endgame, BS does well too but frankly could use a small base damage buff so that power strength builds can be more effective at high levels. As it stands Ash does what he does well and his augments are good, Although some of shuriken augs that OP suggest are good ideas as well.

[Old--Dude]

Ash 4 skill for buff? Well. This will be not a "Bladestorm".

As alternative , I have an idea.  When Bladestorm is activated, Ash teleporting his daggers to chosen target. Inflicted damage (slash) ignoring shield, armor and scaling by mods on melee weapon. After that, swarm of blades launches arownd of  target. Those blades hits all enemies inside some radius (base 10m), inflicting damage equal damage from Ash daggers. This damage also ignores shields and armor. Mod "Covert letality" works on Ash daggers. And, if daggers hits to not alarmed target, damage of blade swarm will have effect of "covert letality" to all unalarmed enenies in radius.

Edited October 5, 2016 by zsNULLsz

[DiabolusUrsus]

18 hours ago, VergilDT said:

I think Changing how BS functions would take away the point of the ability.

That's kind of a futile sentiment, given that it's already officially slated for a rework. It's going to change how it functions one way or another, so this thread is aimed at influencing what that change is like.

18 hours ago, VergilDT said:

Confining it to how fast a player can target an enemy and acquire the next target drastically slows down the speed in which he can kill his targets, in Shadow of Mordor for example the shadow strike power works similarly to every suggested rework i've seen for far for BS, If you haven't played it, go to youtube and find a vid for it. sure it's effective and gets the job done for Talion but it's too slow for true combat teleporter. BS should be left as is in function but improved for the player using it. I've suggested before that it would be more entertaining to remain in place spawning 3 clones instead of 2 to complete the animation, retaining invincibility(perhaps going invis for the duration to make more sense as to why you can't be hit) so that the player can enjoy the use of bladestorm from the outside perspective instead of a slideshow of epilepsy.

This is a non-issue. Moving the teleport attack to a targeted teleport does slow down target acquisition, but it also gives Ash the ability to concentrate all of his damage on a single target if he so desires. Perhaps it would be a good idea to "loosen" the precision on the target acquisition for teleporting to make things a bit easier, but your suggestion of having Blade Storm be carried out solely by clones does nothing to address the lack of interaction on the player's part.

I am also of the opinion that "true" invulnerability needs to be attacked with a vengeance. It contributes nothing to the game mechanically and devalues other methods of survival because enemy DPS has to be upped to compete with Warframes that only offer limited windows of vulnerability. It's the same problem I have with invulnerable bosses. Ash's ability to wipe out entire crowds will be a bit diminished, sure, but he'll still be plenty lethal.

13 hours ago, Chewarette said:

Well, the easiest Bladestorm change would simply be to turn it into a energy-drain that, while active, makes your melee attack teleport you to the target you aim at (maybe with a xx% buff on melee effectiveness as well).

I don't really like the idea of Bladestorm buffing all 3 other spells. That doesn't really make a lot of sense imo. Moreover, with this change, Ash won't even have any attack that can kill more than 1 enemy at a time. Making him basically 100% useless on nearly all missions requiring you to kill billions of people

Sure, that'd be easier, but it also creates dependence on melee weaponry... which I really don't like. Weapons and abilities should be kept separate IMO.

Buffing the other three spells gives Ash options, preserves the "original" function of Blade Storm to an acceptable degree, and gives him some actual team-play support options. If kill rate really proves to be an issue they can always bring back his clones and have them target random enemies on each teleport.

12 hours ago, (PS4)godlysparta said:

One more thing, removing his Bladestorm would make it really hard for Ash to survive. He would be removed from the solo frame meta because he's incredibly squishy with no real escape without his Bladestorm. Other solo frames are tanky or have some way of avoiding all damage for a very long time. Ash does have invisibility but it's too short to do anything with and it's very costly. Also, he can't fit in Energy Siphon like Loki so pretty much it would be a complete rework to how Ash plays.

Overall, it would make Ash way too unbalanced which makes it pointless to rework him in the first place. Also, Teleport is literally his only late game ability. If you remove that, he's a goner. Making this rework would change his playstyle (to people who actually play him) far too much. He would need to be rebalanced overall and it would just make it too complicated.

Ash has buttloads of health. If necessary, up his armor value. Ash can fit whatever Aura you want. If you don't like the polarity hit, use a Forma. From my experiences, Ash is already plenty viable in all "balanced" levels even without relying on Blade Storm invulnerability or Fatal Teleport We shouldn't be balancing around levels that are reached through endless scaling.

As with all changes, this will require people to adapt their playstyle. True. Change is coming, though, so I don't think that "this change would upset people" is a valid criticism. ANY change is going to upset people.

10 hours ago, zsNULLsz said:

Ash 4 skill for buff? Well. This will be not a "Bladestorm".

As alternative , I have an idea.  When Bladestorm is activated, Ash teleporting his daggers to chosen target. Inflicted damage (slash) ignoring shield, armor and scaling by mods on melee weapon. After that, swarm of blades launches arownd of  target. Those blades hits all enemies inside some radius (base 10m), inflicting damage equal damage from Ash daggers. This damage also ignores shields and armor. Mod "Covert letality" works on Ash daggers. And, if daggers hits to not alarmed target, damage of blade swarm will have effect of "covert letality" to all unalarmed enenies in radius.

And why, pray tell, will it not be "Blade Storm?" Because he's still perfectly capable of unleashing storms of blades with free casts of Shuriken and a buffed Teleport that functions identically to individual Blade Storm attacks.

[VergilDT]

This is a non-issue. Moving the teleport attack to a targeted teleport does slow down target acquisition, but it also gives Ash the ability to concentrate all of his damage on a single target if he so desires. Perhaps it would be a good idea to "loosen" the precision on the target acquisition for teleporting to make things a bit easier, but your suggestion of having Blade Storm be carried out solely by clones does nothing to address the lack of interaction on the player's part.

I am also of the opinion that "true" invulnerability needs to be attacked with a vengeance. It contributes nothing to the game mechanically and devalues other methods of survival because enemy DPS has to be upped to compete with Warframes that only offer limited windows of vulnerability. It's the same problem I have with invulnerable bosses. Ash's ability to wipe out entire crowds will be a bit diminished, sure, but he'll still be plenty lethal.

 

So DE is already making a bad choice in changing bladestorm, good to know they've already decided to screw it up after improving it with the clones. I don't get why this ability needs a change, It's performs great at all levels of play and lends it self well to ash's theme/playstyle. I don't see the point in changing it. As far as concentrating damage on one target? that would only be useful against very few bosses at which point if you're playing right and cleared the boss room first then when you ult all attack will hit the boss anyway. Additionally, ult, clearing the small mobs(hitting the heavies at the same time) if somehow that heavy is still alive(it isn't) finish it with guns or ult again if you want to focus all attack on that single target as everything in cast range is now dead anyway. Making the ability interactive would make it so slow, the programming auto selects targets and hits them all automatically, leaving it to a player to acquire all targets themselves is way slower than a computer doing it, Making it more entertaining to the user makes more sense. I guarantee if they screw the pooch on this Ash will be dropped in the garbage right along with the now useless carrier. As far as his invulnerability, it makes sense for him. when you're rapidly teleporting, it's near impossible that you could be hit by anything, even so if he wasn't invulnerable, at higher levels he would die as soon as he ult'd since you can't stop the animation(his invulnerability makes that fine, and situational awareness avoids the dying teammate problem) he could be toxic/slash proc'd to oblivion before he even hits half his targets. If they want to make the ability more team friendly which seems to be a common complaint then they need to remove the extra protection targets get from outside sources, If I ult to cover teammates who are reviving others and the 4th guy in the group helps drop them, i'm not mad at that, Frankly I get pissed at the tools who deliberately nuke the same isolated group I decided to take out just because. but being able to put tonnes of damage through mitigation is what makes ash good, A bleed proc from a finisher(fatal teleport) of half a million damage will kill anything in this game that isn't killed by the original damage. and being able to put near a million total damage on to a single target or spread it to kill groups is too useful for DE to switch it to some interactive nonsense that will ruin it's effectiveness. I don't care about the slideshow animation that is apart of it now, I care that these 18 targets are dead and are not killing my team or objective. I can kill 108 seperate enemies from a full energy pool to 0, as fast as I can pick a new target/group to hit. now if I had to pick target after target, ect. The rest of the team would have killed the next 3 rooms ahead of me in that time. That's why Ash works as is and doesn't need a ridiculous change to accommodate the small number of players who basically want entirely other warframe all together, Maybe we could put some of those "ideas" toward another individual "ninja" warframe and leave Ash the hell alone.

[Nazrethim]

 

 

On 4/10/2016 at 11:29 PM, DiabolusUrsus said:

Bladestorm: Casting provides a base 20s duration buff. While active, Ash's other abilities cost 0 energy (or greatly reduced; negotiable based on idea merit) with augmented effects.

Finally someone who realises ability cost shouldn't be balanced around Fleeting Expertise and Primed Flow!

On 4/10/2016 at 11:29 PM, DiabolusUrsus said:

• Shuriken: Projectile count doubled.
• Smokescreen: Creates a base 15m smoke cloud that lingers for the duration of the ability. Ash and allies within the cloud take 50% reduced ranged damage.
• Teleport: Teleport auto-finishes targeted enemies the same way Blade Storm currently attacks them for equivalent (or tweaked for balanced) damage.

Only problem with this: it makes the abilities pointless to cast outside of Blade Storm due to increased effects and removed/reduced cost. The idea of Synergy is not that you need X ability for Y ability to be good, but that both do their jobs and augment each other in combo, but don't require each other (or one requiring the other) to be good or appealing to use.

On 4/10/2016 at 11:29 PM, DiabolusUrsus said:

Also, here are some ideas for Ash's augment mods:

• Seeking Shuriken: Reduces projectile count to 1, adds 3m punch-through. Enemies hit suffer the standard armor debuff.
• Field of Blades (Shuriken Augment): Projectile count increased to 10, damage decreased 75%, enemies slowed by 75% for 10s.
• Smoke Shadow: Allied cloak range matches stun range.
• Smoke Shield (Smoke Screen Augment): Smoke Screen is thrown at the crosshair instead of Ash's feet, and leaves a lingering smoke cloud that reduces enemy accuracy into and within the cloud.
• Fatal Stinging Teleport: To avoid overlap with Bladestorm, Stinging Teleport now releases 4 Shuriken projectiles wherever Ash teleports from.
• Rising Storm: Pretty sure it should be fine as-is, but I'm strapped for better ideas even though I find it kinda bland.

-Seeking Shuriken: It would severely reduce the damage output, unless the single shuriken deals the same damage as the unaugmented shurikens combined. Also, this would work with Blade Storm for 2 shuriken or still be 1 shuriken even in BS?

-Field of Blades: That's interesting, though if it's doubled by BS it can get really absurd by spam-casting shuriken, remember that BS removes/reduces the cost.

-Smoke Shadow: it works as intended, so this augment doesn't really need any change.

-Smoke Shield: I like it, though the name makes little sense to me.

-Stinging Teleport: are they released in straight path, or simply seek whatever it's the nearest enemy? Interesting concept.

On 4/10/2016 at 11:29 PM, DiabolusUrsus said:

Thoughts?

-How does this BS works in Conclave? What about the other abilities? While the BS looks workable, Smoke Screen and Teleport are 100% organic sh*t in Conclave, so leaving them unchanged is.. not really good.

[DiabolusUrsus]

14 hours ago, VergilDT said:

*snip*

Not a true wall, because you bothered to punctuate, but... paragraphs, for the sake of sanity.

Blade Storm, like any other highly-effective DPS ult without any interaction on the part of the player, has inevitably found itself on the surgery table. I think you're overestimating how slow an interactive Blade Storm would be, but making it interactive also solves the issue of a lack of invulnerability being fatal using its current mechanics.

Ash is getting changed. It's not my decision, and I'm perfectly fine with change in general... so I'd rather focus on making suggestions pertaining to what will happen, not funneling ideas into some fan concept that is likely to just be ignored.

8 hours ago, Nazrethim said:

Finally someone who realises ability cost shouldn't be balanced around Fleeting Expertise and Primed Flow!

Amen.

8 hours ago, Nazrethim said:

Only problem with this: it makes the abilities pointless to cast outside of Blade Storm due to increased effects and removed/reduced cost. The idea of Synergy is not that you need X ability for Y ability to be good, but that both do their jobs and augment each other in combo, but don't require each other (or one requiring the other) to be good or appealing to use.

I disagree. If the idea is balancing cost around something other than maxed efficiency and optimized spam-casting potential, the separate abilities will hold value for when you don't have the energy to cast Blade Storm. (Ideally, we'll see 75% cost reduction tweaked significantly eventually.) If we're limiting discussion strictly to the game as it is now... I would argue that people rarely build for anything but Blade Storm anyway... so the abilities will still be individually more relevant than they are now. Sure, Fatal Teleport is a thing, but it's not exactly ubiquitous the same way Blade Storm is.

I agree that the synergy aspect could be improved, but I was more focused on introducing options that Ash currently lacks.

8 hours ago, Nazrethim said:

-Seeking Shuriken: It would severely reduce the damage output, unless the single shuriken deals the same damage as the unaugmented shurikens combined. Also, this would work with Blade Storm for 2 shuriken or still be 1 shuriken even in BS?

-Field of Blades: That's interesting, though if it's doubled by BS it can get really absurd by spam-casting shuriken, remember that BS removes/reduces the cost.

-Smoke Shadow: it works as intended, so this augment doesn't really need any change.

-Smoke Shield: I like it, though the name makes little sense to me.

-Stinging Teleport: are they released in straight path, or simply seek whatever it's the nearest enemy? Interesting concept.

Bleh. I knew some details would get... muddled.

Seeking: Increased single-projectile damage, no longer tracks and travels in a straight line at increased velocity.

Field: Isn't doubled by Blade Storm, and I'd like to amend the damage reduction to 80%; not looking for a damage buff. (100/shuriken for total 1000). Also, if possible projectiles should be forced to hit different targets.

Smoke Shadow: I still think the range is pretty piddly if you're looking to buff teammates, and I think that warrants a change.

Smoke Shield: If you've got a better name, I'd be glad to hear it. Kinda ran into a wall there.

Stinging: Debating that myself. If straight path, may need more projectiles. If seeking... yeah, I dunno how to avoid making that just outright replace an un-augmented shuriken.

8 hours ago, Nazrethim said:

-How does this BS works in Conclave? What about the other abilities? While the BS looks workable, Smoke Screen and Teleport are 100% organic sh*t in Conclave, so leaving them unchanged is.. not really good.

I haven't really used Ash in Conclave, so I'm not going to comment on that issue.

[Nazrethim]

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I agree that the synergy aspect could be improved, but I was more focused on introducing options that Ash currently lacks.

Agreed. And I like this rework a lot.

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Bleh. I knew some details would get... muddled.

Happens all the time. I made a LOT of revisions to my own suggestion haha

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Seeking: Increased single-projectile damage, no longer tracks and travels in a straight line at increased velocity.

Pretty nice.

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Smoke Shadow: I still think the range is pretty piddly if you're looking to buff teammates, and I think that warrants a change.

The range is the same as the stun, since most Smoke Screen centric builds use Narrow Minded this makes Smoke Shadow pointblank. Try to use it without Narrow Minded and Stretch alone and the range is pretty decent.

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Smoke Shield: If you've got a better name, I'd be glad to hear it. Kinda ran into a wall there.

I would call it "Thick Smoke" or something like that, it would be explained as a smoke screen made of denser particles, therefore it affects trajectory of projectiles flying trough it. Not fully realistic, but hey, we are space ninjas with space magic. Bending the laws of physics for Fun is always a given.

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I haven't really used Ash in Conclave, so I'm not going to comment on that issue.

Quick summary of how currently works:

Passive: nothing

Shuriken: about 20-25m effective range, tends to go into walls, floor, ceiling or past the target if it moves a lot (or it's at pointblank range). 2 Shuriken of 30 Puncture damage each. 25 energy cost.

Smoke Screen: 35 energy cost. Lasts 5s, gives 0.1 Mobility (that's about 10% bulletjump). Breaks if you collect pickups, take enough damage or fire a gun or swing a melee (even if it doesn't connect). Doesn't have stun and has slightly faster casting animation than in PvE. Conclave Augment 'Tear Gas' blinds enemies in 3m range if they are looking in your direction for 3s.

Teleport: teleports you to your target, but doesn't do anything to it, no stagger and no finishers. Faster cast animation and range than in PvE.

BladeStorm: 150ish Conclave Finisher damage (ignores armor but not shields). 6m range. soft-lock (it target something close to the reticle). Cost 100 energy ON CAST regardless if it's sucessful or not (so yeah, you can miss bladestorm). Attacks each marked target once. Overall one of the weakest ultimates in Conclave, only the 100% useless ones (like Nekros Shadows of the Dead) are worse.

And that's pretty much how Ash works in Conclave. The upside is that Ash Prime has good stats and that it's melee friendly since having 3 near useless abilities (SS, Tele and BS) means you can devote energy to Channeling and Shuriken is nice to finish off someone who attempts to escape with a sliver of health (when it doesn't track a random at full health on the border of the screen instead of the almost-dead target you are actually aiming at)

[DiabolusUrsus]

2 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Agreed. And I like this rework a lot.

Happens all the time. I made a LOT of revisions to my own suggestion haha

Pretty nice.

The range is the same as the stun, since most Smoke Screen centric builds use Narrow Minded this makes Smoke Shadow pointblank. Try to use it without Narrow Minded and Stretch alone and the range is pretty decent.

I would call it "Thick Smoke" or something like that, it would be explained as a smoke screen made of denser particles, therefore it affects trajectory of projectiles flying trough it. Not fully realistic, but hey, we are space ninjas with space magic. Bending the laws of physics for Fun is always a given.

Quick summary of how currently works:

Passive: nothing

Shuriken: about 20-25m effective range, tends to go into walls, floor, ceiling or past the target if it moves a lot (or it's at pointblank range). 2 Shuriken of 30 Puncture damage each. 25 energy cost.

Smoke Screen: 35 energy cost. Lasts 5s, gives 0.1 Mobility (that's about 10% bulletjump). Breaks if you collect pickups, take enough damage or fire a gun or swing a melee (even if it doesn't connect). Doesn't have stun and has slightly faster casting animation than in PvE. Conclave Augment 'Tear Gas' blinds enemies in 3m range if they are looking in your direction for 3s.

Teleport: teleports you to your target, but doesn't do anything to it, no stagger and no finishers. Faster cast animation and range than in PvE.

BladeStorm: 150ish Conclave Finisher damage (ignores armor but not shields). 6m range. soft-lock (it target something close to the reticle). Cost 100 energy ON CAST regardless if it's sucessful or not (so yeah, you can miss bladestorm). Attacks each marked target once. Overall one of the weakest ultimates in Conclave, only the 100% useless ones (like Nekros Shadows of the Dead) are worse.

And that's pretty much how Ash works in Conclave. The upside is that Ash Prime has good stats and that it's melee friendly since having 3 near useless abilities (SS, Tele and BS) means you can devote energy to Channeling and Shuriken is nice to finish off someone who attempts to escape with a sliver of health (when it doesn't track a random at full health on the border of the screen instead of the almost-dead target you are actually aiming at)

Because short on time:

1. Thanks.

2. Indeed.

3. Thanks again.

4. I don't use Narrow Minded, but 5m feels pretty piddly to me. Considering how fast-paced this game is and how un-coordinated most teams are, I think 10m would not be an unreasonable base.

5. Thick Smoke works... I was looking at it as "Enemies have a harder time seeing you." The augmented smoke cloud should be larger.

6. Let me think a bit on the Conclave thing. 

[Zetectic]

My view - BS spawns holograms and they do the killing, but Ash continues to be playable in the usual way. 

He's still effective at, and stylish in his killing - that's important.

He's no longer invincible, which reduces the cheese. Ash was always boring to me when I used BS to avoid a bombard rocket.

It eliminates the jarring camera transitions.

Thoughts?

[DiabolusUrsus]

7 hours ago, MistakeNot... said:

My view - BS spawns holograms and they do the killing, but Ash continues to be playable in the usual way. 

He's still effective at, and stylish in his killing - that's important.

He's no longer invincible, which reduces the cheese. Ash was always boring to me when I used BS to avoid a bombard rocket.

It eliminates the jarring camera transitions.

Thoughts?

1. I'm fine with Holograms to some extent, but I find them really unsatisfying when it comes to actual killing power. Are they just as effective? Yeah. Are they faster? Yeah. They're still just not the same, if that makes any sense. I would prefer to maintain Ash's personal participation in the attacks.

2. Agreed.

3. Agreed again.

4. I think having direct control over when and where you go will help a lot with the disorientation effect. Especially given that Teleport means you actually travel to that location, instead of returning to the place you started the cast.

 

[(PSN)crismia14]

changing the bladestorm animation is not necessary i think, why? remember he's a ninja!!! teleporting and stabbing enemies is a natural act of a ninja so why change it? conjuring blades to enemies is not a work of a ninja but a sorcerer's correct? as you can see, the haters will say things to nerf BS, what if the devs nerf your favorite warframe's skills? bitter on BS? you will be bitter to others if somebody tells blah blaha blah on his skills making him/ her useless. rebalancing as what others said would be ok.