Bladestorm rework feedback

[EmptyDevil]

The upcoming Blade Storm change is fine. Keeps the old feel and allows more control without turning it into another copy/paste Exalted Blade suggestion.

[RoniLumen]

After watching the devstream, the Ash rework with target selecting seems slow and problematic.
It is problematic in fast paced. high end missions, where we often only have 0.2-0.5 seconds to aim and cast Bladestorm.

My idea is to keep stats as they are now, same damage and energy cost and range, but bring interaction to the skill by the following:

"Ash goes on a rampage, teleporting to and destroying nearby enemies. "

-Make Bladestorm, the rampage into an interactive state by making teleporting manually controllable by selecting either:
 -1 priority target by selecting it with right click (enemy hacking radio tower console or setting alarm )
 -a group of targets in rage by auto selecting the them by using left click

Here is a Bladestorm in detail:
-cast by aiming at an enemy then press #4
-first, Ash attacks one target, the animation is played in slow motion, meanwhile the player can look around and aim at the next target: aim and right click to attack one target or aim and left click to attack group (which is auto selected and highlighted) in that direction
-after choosing the next target or group, animation speeds up to finish and move onto the next target or group
-attacking a group is the same, but with the hologram clones, slowed down until aiming then speed up when the  next target or group is selected

Bladestorm ends and teleports player back to the spot, if the player don't or can't select enemies in 4 seconds .
One enemy can be repeatedly attacked by holding right mouse button (upto remaining attacks out of 18 at max rank)
A group of enemies can be repeatedly attacked by holding left mouse button (upto remaining attacks out of 18 at max rank)
During Bladestorm state, enemies are highlighted, group selections as green, single/priority targets as red and allies as blue.
Highlighted enemies are visible through walls and other objects and can be targeted if they are within the sphere of power range.
Bladestorm state could have a special screen filter, highlighted enemies and allies, desaturated or monochorome environment, higher contrast with either blurry or sharpened filter.

[BlackCoMerc]

7 minutes ago, kuchn said:

Merc -1 on that one, sry

press 4 to win has to go...

I agree. Press 4 to win has to go.

But ultimates should at least be useful.

This one isnt.

[BlackCoMerc]

1 hour ago, NightmareT12 said:

Maybe it will feel better though and can get a pass. Because to be honest, the best way to do this would be to have Ash take out the blades and attack AC style, but how do you balance that effectively?

25 Energy Per Strike. Before efficiency, of course.

All damage remains Finisher damage. But you have to manually move to the target, and attack them. If they are bleeding or you are undetected, the damage is doubled. 

So you have 2000 Finisher damage per strike. With a potential 4000 or more per strike. Scaling with both melee mods, AND power strength, plus bleeding or undetected bonus.

Hence, the high energy cost per strike. Excalibur uses his stance to FIGHT. Ash would use his stance, to KILL.

[Racter]

1 hour ago, Shichibukai88 said:

I hope everyones wrong but i get the feeling this time its really gonna be flat out bad :/

You are 100% correct, there will be 0 (zero) reason to use this iteration of Bladestorm, ever. In the time it took to mark the enemies, you could have easily killed all of them with a regular weapon at most levels of the game, and instakilled most of them with teleport+dagger at levels where guns have fallen off.

1 hour ago, weezedog said:

It might be better if holding down 4 sends out just shadows to attack on marked targets and happens immediately and the player isn't teleported at all. That could work and that would be closer to Mesa's mechanics and might be cool. 

I will say that what they showed on the stream with marking enemies and then releasing to cast is going to take way too long, enemies die way to fast for that. 

Yeah but this removes the other perk of the ability, the i frames.

50 minutes ago, xXx_mtv_xXx said:

I say just remove his clones and leave everything else about BS untouched. This will slow it down to the point that it will be faster to just shoot the enemies, but BS will still work as originally intended. 

It worked like this originally. Not sure how long you've been here, but it was absolutely awful and everyone hated it. It was comically bad, as will this new version.

35 minutes ago, Azrael said:

That would just be a straight nerf, and would fix none of the problems with it.

To be fair, so is the version they showed us today. I knew as soon as they said they were looking at it, it would get nerfed, but I didn't expect it to get nerfed this hard. Ash will be completely useless after this tbh. His only selling point (BS) is getting removed. Ivara already does team stealth much better and many, many frames do finishers better.

This is the worst "rework" by far. Not only are they nuking his only good skill (like they usually do with reworks), they aren't even buffing one of his others to compensate. 0/10

[PoisonHD]

I... am conflicted on this, don't know why.

Edited October 7, 2016 by PoisonHD

[DarthBane1]

I like it. I would like this one or one where you have to press a certain key within a time limit. 

 

(EXE: Look at God Of War where you have to press a button)

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

2 hours ago, BlackCoMerc said:

Marking takes too much time. And it's too hard to do with a controller. This rework makes his Ultimate unplayable in any real squad, and means dying while trying to mark solo.

Please consider making BS a deadly but costly per strike stance instead.

I agree. You can't maintain that sort of mechanic using a controller and aiming. This rework will make me delete him from my frames list.

[Racter]

2 hours ago, Azrael said:

They said that it costs energy every time you mark someone, and then if that enemy dies you get the energy back. Releasing the ability attacks the marked enemies.

 

At low levels, yes. But once you start needing BS I'm sure you'll be able to use this ability. Also reworks usually come with a change to the meta in terms of how to use an ability. Maybe you aren't supposed to kill 17 enemies in one cast anymore? If you just run around marking enemies trying to BS the whole map at once and then complain when other people get kills, that's your fault.

 

Jeez, guys, quit with the panic, huh? They showed Rebecca using a prototype of BS. We know basically nothing about it. How about we actually try it before we condemn it as "100% useless," eh?

How about we try it? How many times have we been through this in the last year? Saryn rework, Mag "rework", Valkyr "rework", both initial version of Vacuum changes, how many times are you going to fall for this? The rework shown on stream will make Ash 100% irrelevant. His only skill that matters is Bladestorm, everything else in his kit is done better by someone else. Now Bladestorm will be strictly worse than using weapons in all situations, where does that leave Ash? In the dumpster.

2 hours ago, Shockwave- said:

So BS is useful only for whom? I can point at them with BS (or my tonkor) click my button to mark them (or click my button to fire) then actually take the time to execute the BS (they would already be dead to the Tonkor). The issue is it's the SAME mechanic as firing your gun at them. so it needs to be MUCH more efficient that ANY gun. Which means for 99% of the game your gun is always going to be better.

 

Unless you can 1 shot anything with BS including gated enemies, I don't see that's particularly useful.

This is 100% on point and it blows my mind that people don't see it. Why would you ever use this version of Bladestorm when regular weapons exist? For that matter, you can teleport+dagger and instakill any enemy in the game that has a finisher animation very nearly as quickly as this "rework", why would you bother with this ever? Exactly, you wont. They could have nerfed it's target count, or it's range, or added LoS, this is so much worse than what I expected.

Edited October 7, 2016 by Racter

[RoniLumen]

Thanks for responding, ask if anything is not clear. I'm not a veteran on forums, this is only a sketch of a direction in reworking Bladestrom.
I think it is great that they explain and show it on a devstream, so their audience can respond with constructive ideas.
 

11 minutes ago, DarthBane1 said:

I like it. I would like this one or one where you have to press a certain key within a time limit. 

There is a time limit for targeting one enemy or a group of targets, I thought of 4 seconds.
Bladestrorm starts in slow motion, you have time to target for 3-4 seconds, animation speeds up to finish and goes onto next target, if the timer is up, Bladestrom is over.
It would give the interaction to it and requires skill.

[JadesMenades]

Honestly with the new rework, I think that ash will completely useless. Now u can mass kill enemies but after the rework u have to individually mark targets. Sure this sounds alright but honestly I think it would be to slow, because you have to see each target. If you have others in a mission they will probs kill the enemies before you can even mark them(or even while they're marked), which means you will only be bladestorming a small amount too no enemies at a time.

The sad thing is that he is getting a really cool deluxe skin but then he won't be as fun to play anymore.

 

edit* 

 

Edited October 7, 2016 by JadesMenades

[JadesMenades]

This is a good idea, as the bladestorm camera can be a bit annoying. Often staring at it constantly makes my head spin. The idea of having a manual sort of bladestorm period is good.

[Duduminador]

2 hours ago, Babellon said:

well, I know you're not referencing all ash players, only the not so talented ones lol. Those of us who appreciate ash know how and when to use his powers effectively, as well as playing to the strengths of our team. I'll burn bladestorm in a second to guard my teammates while someone is being revived, or if a defense pod is about to go down, or rescue target is almost dead. However I wouldn't waste it on a room knowing that a; people are going to run right through or/and b: I have a full team that is capable of killing that room with ease. 

I think it more comes down to the player in that regard, knowing how to play well with others means letting others play as well. 

The irony... Blade Storm build works just as well for Smoke Screen (except for duration, but then again, you don't need that much duration just for an emergency dazzle), all the examples you gave can be better handled by using Smoke screen over Blade Storm, just for the stun alone, Specially ressurrecting, which also lets Ash himself revive the downade player while invisible, meanwhile Blade Storm literaly forbids any action while occasionaly making mobs invulnerable and letting the count down of the player in bleedout go all the way to 0 while Ash is performing his little theater scene.

[GrimAtrament]

8 minutes ago, JadesMenades said:

Honestly with the new rework, I think that ash will completely useless. Now u can mass kill enemies but after the rework u have to individually mark targets. Sure this sounds alright but honestly I think it would be to slow, because you have to see each target. If you have others in a mission they will probs kill the enemies before you can even mark them(or even while they're marked), which means you will only be bladestorming a small amount too no enemies at a time.

The sad thing is that he is getting a really cool deluxe skin but then he won't be as fun to play anymore.

thats why its getting this they are making it no longer press 4 to win thats the point!

[Aenris]

my only question is: is it possible to have Slow motion with a multiplayer session? How do you make timeflow go slow for one player and normal for all the others?

[[DE]Momaw]

12 minutes ago, JadesMenades said:

If you have others in a mission they will probs kill the enemies before you can even mark them

Ironically that's exactly what it's like to play with an Ash on your team right now:  trying to find an enemy and aim at them or close range and stab them with melee, before Ash wipes the map from some safe location.

If you're used to getting 90% of the team's kills with Bladestorm, I have no sympathy for you. The changes make him more fair to everybody else, and sound a lot more interesting to play  because you're not just pressing the button and then waiting.

Edited October 7, 2016 by Momaw

[Babellon]

7 minutes ago, Duduminador said:

-

Well, truth be told with the way I mod ash, I get all of my powers for 25 energy(that's bladestorm, everything else is lower, with shuriken coming in at 5 energy)..a rather large range, smoke screen has 15? second duration (I place it as question of myself as I do not remember offhand exactly, between 12-15), shuriken is frustrating because it doesn't aim to cursor but has great range by itself. I don't use a "bladestorm build" or a "smoke screen build"...I use ash. Not sure how ironic it is, except that I was refering to the ways in which ash can be used to support his teammates with bladestorm that doesn't interfere with peoples ability to play, which was the point of my post. If I were closest to my teammate I'd probably go with smoke screen and rez them much like you said. How ever the premise I was working on was that not everyone who plays ash interferes with the rest of the teams ability to play, its about knowing when to use what powers.

Edited October 7, 2016 by Babellon

[Azrael]

29 minutes ago, Racter said:

The rework shown on stream will make Ash 100% irrelevant.

 

30 minutes ago, Racter said:

Now Bladestorm will be strictly worse than using weapons in all situations, where does that leave Ash? In the dumpster.

Oh, C'mon, man. Is this drama really necessary? "I have to mark targets before I kill them now, ash is total garbage and I'm never using him again." You saw 5 minutes of Rebecca using a prototype. Calm down. They haven't even released the official details yet, and for all we know they're still polishing it. Whenever reworks come we always have to adjust how we play a little, there's no way you can know that ash will be useless or irrelevant.

Making suggestions or raising concerns is fine, and probably needed. I have some of my own. But when you use this sort of dramatic hyperbole it's hard to take you seriously.

[(PSN)xX-GunHound-Xx]

I was actually thinking about them being somewhat close to how good this can be.

They can keep the target mechanic and the general function of how it currently works.

Only difference is, using BS would put him into melee with his daggers ( BEAR WITH ME )

In a sense, that would be too similar to Excalibur's Exalted Blade...

So instead, the initation of BS would be through the use of your melee key bindings.

Meaning, through each press of your melee key bindings, BS will teleport you to each of the enemies you've targeted. No need to aim like Mesa's ult, since you'll just teleport to the closest enemy you've targeted. That was the first idea, the second one is you DO aim, but after each kill, you'll have roughly 1.5or 2 seconds of invulnerability to reposition yourself to the next target. Now this is why I prefer the second concept, because it involves SYNERGY...here's how...

In the second concept, if you were to use Shuriken in BS melee mode, it will essentially allow you to teleport to the next enemy you've started a bleed proc on via Shuriken. While your Bladestorming you won't need to aim since Shuriken is acting as your instant teleport marker. It will cost more energy BUT you'll get the added benefit this new mechanic offers by stacking DoTs of slash and bleed since you are taking the time of using two abilities for the full effect of what using only one initially provided, but only if you used Shuriken prior to Bladestorming. This way, you still have the first iteration of BS, but it's more controlled only through the use of your other abilities. Also, you don't HAVE to use Shuriken, you can just use BS and still have a similar effect. W/O Shuriken, 1.5~2 seconds of invulnerability, WITH Shuriken, stackable DoTs and more damage

Lower the cap of the enemies you can target, but increase the range. Decrease the amount of energy used for Shuriken while you're in BS melee mode and allow the DoTs to be stackable but only if you're using BS with Shuriken.

 

Edited October 7, 2016 by (PS4)xX-GunHound-Xx

[JadesMenades]

9 minutes ago, Momaw said:

Ironically that's exactly what it's like to play with an Ash on your team right now:  trying to find an enemy and aim at them or close range and stab them with melee, before Ash wipes the map from some safe location.

If you're used to getting 90% of the team's kills with Bladestorm, I have no sympathy for you. The changes make him more fair to everybody else, and sound a lot more interesting to play  because you're not just pressing the button and then waiting.

I'm pretty sure killing three enemies when you mark 6 is not that interesting. I wouldn't mind if bladestorm was the same but you would need to do something while in bladestorm 

[VinDanger]

21 minutes ago, JadesMenades said:

Now u can mass kill enemies but after the rework u have to individually mark targets

it's almost like that's the whole point of the rework

[ReeceNightshade]

The only problem I see with this is finisher damage normally does a crap ton of damage. What if it just increased all damage the marked target takes instead of just finisher damage? I think that would be useful :3

[JadesMenades]

14 minutes ago, hazerddex said:

thats why its getting this they are making it no longer press 4 to win thats the point!

There are other frames that have press 4 to win abilities like Excalibur and valkyr and honestly I don't think the problem is ash's bladestorm, I think the problem is that his other abilities don't synergise with his bladestorm. If DE want to make it interactive then add synergy 

[motorfirebox]

I really like the idea of using shuriken as the teleport.

[Azrael]

3 minutes ago, JadesMenades said:

I don't think the problem is ash's bladestorm, I think the problem is that his other abilities don't synergise with his bladestorm.

Ash's BS is a huge problem. Between making enemies invulnerable, killing enemies in spawn rooms without the player knowing they are there, messing up spawns by teleporting around the entire map, and killing all teammates every time he gets rad procced, I think it's fair to say that BS needs to be changed. The fact that you can afk while killing is only one of the problems with BS.

 

*Edit: Oh, and if you think that valkyr's ability is press 4 to win the same way BS is, then you've never used either ability. BS is the only ability of its type in the game. Not even frosts 4 comes close for being annoying, anti-teamwork, overpowered bs (pun intended).

Edited October 7, 2016 by Azrael