Zephyr Unleashed! The Ultimate Cyclone!

[XxSouLxPoiS0NxX]

Many are probably saying... "yet another Zephyr thread".  Yeah, you're right... it is, but thats just saying that she really needs an update.  I have posted about Zephyr in the past as well, but ideas do occur randomly, so might as well throw the ideas out there.

 

Zephyr should have a base power buff.

Passive 1:  Airburst Shockwave:  When Zephyr bullet jumps, a burst of air shoots at the ground, knocking nearby enemies over. [Similar to toxic flight mod, only with a strong knock back effect instead]

Passive 2: Increased Air Glide, wall latch, and parkour abilities. Also will have increased Sprint Speed when a tornado id active.

Passive 3: Sliding melee attacks have a small chance of summoning miniature tornadoes that last for 7 seconds. These tornadoes will stagger enemies who touch these tornadoes.

 

Ability 1: Cyclone Shuriken: very similar to Ashs' Shuriken [and very similar to Narutos' wind shuriken], Zephyr will summon a giant cyclone shuriken and throws it towards target.  This shuriken will deal mostly slash damage [based on power strength] and will have a 40% chance of disarming enemies who are hit by this shuriken.

Ability 2: Tornado Wall: Summons 3 tornados that surround Zephyr.  These tornadoes will circle around Zephyr tossing any enemy who is in melee range.  Also will greatly reduce damage from projectiles [such as explosives], and deflects a small percentage of bullets. This will be a duration based effect requiring Power Duration.

-Augment: Tornadic Pulse: Allies who are in range of Zephyr when ability is activated will gain 2 tornadoes that will act similarly like Zephyrs tornados.  

Ability 3: Airburst Strike: Zephyr Jumps into the air dragging nearby enemies into the air with her and then throws them onto the ground stunning them.  Then Zephyr 'divebombs' enemies, causing increased damage to those who were dragged into the air by the 'tailwind'... power range will determine how many enemies can get sucked up into air when Zephyr jumps, Power Strength will determine how much damage is done, Power Duration determines how high Zephyr will jump.

Ability 4: Cyclone Blade: Zephyr will summon a special blade, of which she will throw at a location.  A single tornado will spawn at the point of blades location and will stay in that location [based on power range].  Pending on Power Strength, Zephyr can have up to 4 blades. Tornado will be based off of duration...however, you can pick up these blades at any time to cancel your tornado. Power Strength will also determine how mich damage is dealt.

-Augment: Sharpened Storm: Enemies killed by tornadoes will have a high chance of increased resources.

 

Well, i think i might have hit a home run on this idea. What do you think?  What would your suggestions be on improving this idea, or Zephyr herself?  

 

-----Edit: my bad for the megathread tag. I tried changing it but it wouldnt allow me. [Apparently it did].  I didnt know what it was at the time. If a mod cpuld change that, that would be great!

 

-----Edit: additional info:  

Ability one possible update: cyclone shuriken could be effected by punch through and status mods from your equipped melee weapon.  Punch through would add a multi enemy knockdown effect [in shurikens path]. Would be based on both the punch through mods and power strength.

 

Ability 4 possible update: The blade summoned would also have its own combos and can be used as a melee weapon.  Melee mods will transfer to this blade, but only base status mods will effect tornadoes.  [Tornadoes will not be effected by status chance mods; would have a set status chance]

Edited October 19, 2016 by XxSouLxPoiS0NxX
Tag removed and added content

[xXDeadsinxX]

Would love to see all of these true! Very good concept. +1 :)

[(PSN)SuperShadic445]

Not gonna lie, I'd like to see Zephyr throwing these around all willy nilly

[artemisfortune]

Megathread tag is for mod/admin use only.

[artemisfortune]

56 minutes ago, Nexecute said:

Why do they give us the option then?

They don't. They can't edit the permissions. So it's either no tags at all, or not using the tags they tell us not to.

[XxSouLxPoiS0NxX]

18 hours ago, JSharpie said:

Megathread tag is for mod/admin use only.

Fixed.  Anyway, about the topic at hand... Zephyr should be getting primed soon [i hope], but she does need an update for sure.  Plus the delux skin needs to hurry aswell [lol].   

[SenorClipClop]

On 10/18/2016 at 8:11 PM, XxSouLxPoiS0NxX said:

Zephyr should have a base power buff.

Cyclone Blade: Zephyr will summon a special blade, of which she will throw at a location.  

Why does her ult need to be a tornado and a sword? We already have a sword frame.

Your ideas are good, but ultimately this feels like too much of a design change, practically a different Warframe altogether. This concept feels more like Ash if he were an Airbender -- which is not a bad thing, but reworking an existing Warframe means they should have a mostly similar aesthetic to how they were conceptualized. Zephyr needs to stay a mildly tanky, supportive Warframe whose primary combat advantage is her unparalleled mobility and the ability to harass the enemy in unexpected ways. She is not a damage-focused frame and probably shouldn't be.

The issue is that where Zephyr used to have unique mobility advantages a while back, Parkour 2.0's additions have made much of Zephyr's mobility-oriented kit somewhat redundant, and more recent engagement-focused enemies and situations have rendered a lot of what she does somewhat less rewarding to use. Zephyr is almost amazing. She doesn't need much, just a bit more life thrown into her airborne game and greater reliability in how her CC works. Those tornadoes can be a pain to follow up on.

[(XBOX)EntrTheLight]

Wow, i have to say this is some really fantastic ideas.  

-------

i love the ultimate. Being able to summon a tornado via blade sounds much better to me.  More controllable and less A.I dependant.  

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

On 19/10/2016 at 8:45 PM, XxSouLxPoiS0NxX said:

Zephyr should be getting primed soon [i hope], but she does need an update for sure.  Plus the delux skin needs to hurry aswell [lol].   

I would love to take the time to comment on this thread properly, but can't. However, as far as we know, Zephyr's Prime release isn't scheduled for another 15 months or so. There's been a solid order of Prime releases, with only three cases of a frame being released out of the established order.

DE release two 'male' frames and the two 'female' frames in sequence based on their original release order. The ones out of order are Frost, Nyx and Nova, all three jumping up the release schedule due to the popularity of the frames.

Here, this should help:

Spoiler

 

Primes released so far, in order, in pairs of male and pairs of female:

Excal / Frost (out of order, but first male frame after the original 8, very popular)

Mag / Ember

Rhino / Loki

Nyx (A little out of order, would have been Trinity) / Nova (Again, out of order... Would have been Nyx here, Nova should come after Saryn)

Volt / Ash

Trinity (Done with the original 8!) / Saryn

Vauban / Nekros

Primes to be released in the predicted order:

Banshee / Valkyr

Oberon / Hydroid (Eesh, maybe a little work needed on these two, DE)

Zephyr / Mirage

Limbo / Chroma

Mesa / Equinox (honestly, I'm still unsure to put her here, even after DE says she's technically a female frame)

Atlas / Wukong

Ivara / Titania

Nezha / Inaros

(Also, the sudden appearance of Wukong and Nezha at the same time throws this off a little as we're now a little unbalanced as to male/female frames.)

 

If you see that all the Prime Access periods last 90 Days, plus a week or two of hype raising time for the next one (and to allow the update to fall in mid-week for the weekend rush, the way they like to do), that means we have to finish Nekros, and get through Banshee, Valkyr, Oberon and Hydroid before Zephyr would come up.

Unless we can raise a lot of fans for her very, very quickly, then it's unlikely that she'll be arriving before Christmas 2017.

Deluxe skin, on the other hand? That's pretty soon. Needs to hurry XD

[(XBOX)EntrTheLight]

57 minutes ago, Thaylien said:

I would love to take the time to comment on this thread properly, but can't. However, as far as we know, Zephyr's Prime release isn't scheduled for another 15 months or so. There's been a solid order of Prime releases, with only three cases of a frame being released out of the established order.

DE release two 'male' frames and the two 'female' frames in sequence based on their original release order. The ones out of order are Frost, Nyx and Nova, all three jumping up the release schedule due to the popularity of the frames.

Here, this should help:

  Hide contents

 

Primes released so far, in order, in pairs of male and pairs of female:

Excal / Frost (out of order, but first male frame after the original 8, very popular)

Mag / Ember

Rhino / Loki

Nyx (A little out of order, would have been Trinity) / Nova (Again, out of order... Would have been Nyx here, Nova should come after Saryn)

Volt / Ash

Trinity (Done with the original 8!) / Saryn

Vauban / Nekros

Primes to be released in the predicted order:

Banshee / Valkyr

Oberon / Hydroid (Eesh, maybe a little work needed on these two, DE)

Zephyr / Mirage

Limbo / Chroma

Mesa / Equinox (honestly, I'm still unsure to put her here, even after DE says she's technically a female frame)

Atlas / Wukong

Ivara / Titania

Nezha / Inaros

(Also, the sudden appearance of Wukong and Nezha at the same time throws this off a little as we're now a little unbalanced as to male/female frames.)

 

If you see that all the Prime Access periods last 90 Days, plus a week or two of hype raising time for the next one (and to allow the update to fall in mid-week for the weekend rush, the way they like to do), that means we have to finish Nekros, and get through Banshee, Valkyr, Oberon and Hydroid before Zephyr would come up.

Unless we can raise a lot of fans for her very, very quickly, then it's unlikely that she'll be arriving before Christmas 2017.

Deluxe skin, on the other hand? That's pretty soon. Needs to hurry XD

Wow thats a long wait.  Well, hopefully she gets a change before she gets primed then.. lol.  So far, this has been the best Zephyr Idea that i have seen...or atleast in my opinion... 

 

[XxSouLxPoiS0NxX]

On Wednesday, October 19, 2016 at 10:21 PM, SenorClipClop said:

Why does her ult need to be a tornado and a sword? We already have a sword frame.

Your ideas are good, but ultimately this feels like too much of a design change, practically a different Warframe altogether. This concept feels more like Ash if he were an Airbender -- which is not a bad thing, but reworking an existing Warframe means they should have a mostly similar aesthetic to how they were conceptualized. Zephyr needs to stay a mildly tanky, supportive Warframe whose primary combat advantage is her unparalleled mobility and the ability to harass the enemy in unexpected ways. She is not a damage-focused frame and probably shouldn't be.

The issue is that where Zephyr used to have unique mobility advantages a while back, Parkour 2.0's additions have made much of Zephyr's mobility-oriented kit somewhat redundant, and more recent engagement-focused enemies and situations have rendered a lot of what she does somewhat less rewarding to use. Zephyr is almost amazing. She doesn't need much, just a bit more life thrown into her airborne game and greater reliability in how her CC works. Those tornadoes can be a pain to follow up on.

Well, change isnt necessarily a bad thing.  I think that this change will spice Zephyr up alot and would add more control to Zephyr.  RIght now, i can say Zephyr relies strongly on her 3rd.  Her 4th is alright, but its just a press and let A.I do the work. By implementing this update, you will have more interaction with your abilities.

 

I will be ok if turbulence stays.  It needs a base range increase though, and we could make the current augment a part of her ability and add an augment to summon 2 tornadoes to protect her and/or her allies (similar to nezha's halo) from physical threats.

 

In all honesty, it might be a big change from the current Zephyr, however I think that this is a needed change... and a positive change.  There are two frames that i can think of that could use a big change: Zephyr and Hydroid.  

As for it being a blade, it doesnt have to be a blade. It could be a special artifact of some sort, or maybe a special staff, but a blade makes more sense. 

[SenorClipClop]

2 hours ago, XxSouLxPoiS0NxX said:

Spoiler

 

Well, change isnt necessarily a bad thing.  I think that this change will spice Zephyr up alot and would add more control to Zephyr.  RIght now, i can say Zephyr relies strongly on her 3rd.  Her 4th is alright, but its just a press and let A.I do the work. By implementing this update, you will have more interaction with your abilities.

 

I will be ok if turbulence stays.  It needs a base range increase though, and we could make the current augment a part of her ability and add an augment to summon 2 tornadoes to protect her and/or her allies (similar to nezha's halo) from physical threats.

 

In all honesty, it might be a big change from the current Zephyr, however I think that this is a needed change... and a positive change.  There are two frames that i can think of that could use a big change: Zephyr and Hydroid.  

As for it being a blade, it doesnt have to be a blade. It could be a special artifact of some sort, or maybe a special staff, but a blade makes more sense. 

 

 

A blade does not make more sense. Zephyr's design has nothing to do with swords. You might make a connection between wind and swords personally (Yasuo fans in the house?), but this game has not made that connection and this kind of cosmetic wouldn't really work on Zephyr. (Same with the air shuriken thing. It doesn't need to be a shuriken.) Beyond that, your idea of turning her ult into tornadoes you can stack charges of and place in chosen locations to control points on the map is good.

Zephyr needs changes to make her kit more relevant in the current build of the game and needs to feature more engaging gameplay, it's true, but changes to Zephyr's powers shouldn't make her into a different Warframe with a different playstyle. She is currently a more passive support kind of frame. Right now she's a little too passive and that needs fixing, but replacing her moves with what you suggest would make her into a whippy combo fighter. Which is a cool idea, but it's ultimately trying to make Zehpyr into something she isn't. IMO, she plays more like Aang (Avatar), less like Yasou (LoL) or Genji (OW).

[XxSouLxPoiS0NxX]

On Friday, October 21, 2016 at 7:01 PM, SenorClipClop said:

A blade does not make more sense. Zephyr's design has nothing to do with swords. You might make a connection between wind and swords personally (Yasuo fans in the house?), but this game has not made that connection and this kind of cosmetic wouldn't really work on Zephyr. (Same with the air shuriken thing. It doesn't need to be a shuriken.) Beyond that, your idea of turning her ult into tornadoes you can stack charges of and place in chosen locations to control points on the map is good.

Zephyr needs changes to make her kit more relevant in the current build of the game and needs to feature more engaging gameplay, it's true, but changes to Zephyr's powers shouldn't make her into a different Warframe with a different playstyle. She is currently a more passive support kind of frame. Right now she's a little too passive and that needs fixing, but replacing her moves with what you suggest would make her into a whippy combo fighter. Which is a cool idea, but it's ultimately trying to make Zehpyr into something she isn't. IMO, she plays more like Aang (Avatar), less like Yasou (LoL) or Genji (OW).

Honestly it does to me...although i guess i have a image of what the blade would look like in my head... but i dont know how to describe it.    And it doesnt have to be a blade.  It could be a staff.  But the object of this idea was to give zephyr some more control by using this 'special weapon' that can be placed at location to form a tornado.

As for changing her playstyle...  i said previously that change is good.  I think it opens the book for new opportunities, plus it will give people a reason to actually use her for more than just one or two abilities.

 And in fact, i did make a possible change to her abilities: involving merging turbulence and her current augment together as one ability, and make the augment able to summon 2 tornadoes around herself/allies.  Plus on top of that you will have a merged tailwind and divebomb... only a different name and some slight changes, but not totally different.  Plus her ultimate would still be around tornadoes.  The only big change is her new 1st... So really, it wouldnt be a completely new warframe ... just heavily upgraded.   

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

Hmm... I wasn't going to reply to this one at first, rare for me, but I kinda thought I should give it a chance.

My problem is that you're completely redesigning Zephyr, from the ground up, and giving her some rather... Excalibur-esque abilities that she doesn't thematically mesh with.

Let's get this out of the way then; I don't think that Zephyr will ever be redesigned into an offensive style of frame, and I don't think what you've designed is actually Zephyr, but another warframe that has wind-based powers. My view on her is that her abilities are not obsolete and simply need mechanical fixes, and maybe an addition here or there, in order to bring them up to full working order again.

But with that said, treating this as a more-or-less new frame design, I can see the benefits of what you've come up with, even if I think it does take too many ideas from other frames.

So, let's take a look at this.

Passive: One passive, let's not be greedy. I like option 1 and I like option 3. Considering she doesn't have any mobility casts like Tailwind, I can see 3 being better as there's no longer a choice between those mobility casts and Bullet Jump, she would now have to use bullet jump, meaning that we don't want her to do the opposite of Mag all the time. The spin-to-win would play quite well into a melee caster frame, which this is shaping up to be.

1. A one-handed cast projectile that has a decent chance to disarm a single target, it would have to be low damage in order to balance that out... Interesting though, as we only have one frame that disarms, and augments for a single other frame that have a chance to disarm, this could be a good one.

2. You've weakened Turbulence to balance the physical shield aspect of this. I'm fairly certain that the damage reduction bit balances better with the new disarm feature, since melee enemies will charge into that range, but I just feel that given how strong Turbulence is it's a bad trade. On the other hand, are you sure that physical knock-back will actually work so well with a frame that wants to use more melee? Just a thought that you'd actually want them to get in closer in order to make better use of the new 4. All in all, I think Turbulence on 3 is still the best choice, even without any damage reduction.

3. An animation based radial slam with temporary CC and potentially higher damage, unfortunately suffers the same problem of her current dive-bomb where it's useless in confined spaces. It's also a lot of animation, as in a lot, to do for a 3 ability. Most 4 animations are shorter than that would be, and less involved.

How about instead of the rise-and-fall animation it's a radial suction and then clear? So she flash-pulls in all the air from a radius, which ragdolls enemies in towards her, and then blasts the ground pushing them all away again for damage and short duration CC. The animation would look a lot like the pole-arm stealth executions (the part-turn, flip over sideways and slam, you know the one) but where the energy is drawn in from a radius into a hand animation and then blasted down at the ground for a radius.

Short on the animation, about the length of Excal's Radial Javelin, and is great for clearing an area for a revive or pod activation.

4. This may be considered over-powered. Why? Because you're creating a Vauban Vortex that can turn into an Exalted Blade and back again. Two abilities we really don't want to steal because it would make this ability more powerful than both.

How about something a little more portable and less spam-able? For example, she could charge up to 4 'shurikens' that form a melee shield, damaging enemies that get close, and then up to four times consecutively she can launch these to do a ranged radial clear. Think of it like Scarab Armour, but for CC and melee damage reduction instead of for armour and health regen. Stand and charge up air to generate a new shuriken, it orbits at a close range (so it only works on melee range enemies, and damages, but doesn't stun, while reducing a percentage of damage from melee attacks) and then you can expend a shuriken to blast a particular area with a high-damage, mid-range area clear as if launching a Glaive weapon.

Does that fit your theme?

In any case, I'm wandering off, tell me what you think!

[kapn655321]

YES to the tornado melee passive.
NO to the mass ability overhaul.

Two simple changes:

1- Tailwind. No more forward, reduced cost.
Hitting it flaps up with diminishing returns.
Being close to enemies causes a brief eye-cover animation
(like petrify or blind but no proc/effect, just stops 8m radius enemies firing for 1.2 sec non-proc CC, less for resistant units.
Temporary spamming results in small AoE stunlock, not continuous due to diminishing returns.)

2- Divebomb.
Hitting it on ground level does something akin to Banshee's 1.

Simple, balanced, versatile.

Edited October 26, 2016 by kapn655321

[Suska]

what is zephyr?

1.as tanky as an low armor frame can be with a superb projectile defense

2.a wild and weak cc

3.mobility, mobility and more mobility, except designed for mobility 1.0

you don't want zephyr if you're even talking about her like what sort of offensive powers should she have, she has weapons and she used to be able to deliver those weapons faster and higher than anyone

[Birdframe_Prime]

10 hours ago, Suska said:

you don't want zephyr if you're even talking about her like what sort of offensive powers should she have, she has weapons and she used to be able to deliver those weapons faster and higher than anyone

On the surface, you're quite right. I will stick another oar in to say that there's a distinction between damage abilities and offense abilities.

Zephyr does have two offensive abilities, they're just designed to be low-damage (and their main effects are under-powered too in my opinion). If DE were to mechanically fix Dive Bomb's knock down, maybe buff the range, and then add something to Tailwind (like the ability passes through enemies causing a knock-down or other short-term CC, so that she can go through corridors and crowds, making it useful in low-ceiling tiles), these two would be very, very useful low-damage offensive abilities.

There's a big thread on here dedicated to mechanically fixing her abilities to make them compatible with the current styles of play, minimal change for maximum effect. I may even create a new one to sum up all the ideas in one place.

Think of this thread as I did; it's designing more of a new frame than a rework of an old one, and see if you can give some feedback on the creativity and game application possibilities of this new set of skills, that may help in understanding where the original poster is coming from.

[Suska]

The synergy was always with mobility BECAUSE her skills were underwhelming. I don't know what you mean by " current styles of play " but mobility used to matter and it used to be difficult and Zephyr made stuff possible. Now Titania got full flight and Zephyr is basically just annoyingly floaty and you guys don't seem to understand her history or charm, otherwise I don't have much to say about it, she needs to be updated of course, but a lot of what's being suggested here would amount to a career change.

[Birdframe_Prime]

11 hours ago, Suska said:

The synergy was always with mobility BECAUSE her skills were underwhelming. I don't know what you mean by " current styles of play " but mobility used to matter and it used to be difficult and Zephyr made stuff possible. Now Titania got full flight and Zephyr is basically just annoyingly floaty and you guys don't seem to understand her history or charm, otherwise I don't have much to say about it, she needs to be updated of course, but a lot of what's being suggested here would amount to a career change.

'Current Style of Play' where DE has moved away from as many cheese builds, has thrown nearly all 'infinite' abilities into the bin or reworked them into something different, has reworked as many spam abilities as they can so far into ones that have more worth to be tactically deployed instead of re-cast every second, and will 'soon' be reworking the Damage system to ensure that the enemy scaling, as well as our own, is based more in the realms of commons sense (I mean, come on, armour scaling on enemies is just... ridiculous numbers).  Also where every frame, nearly regardless of the base mobility, can utilise movement skills like Bullet jump and the new wall climbs and clings to reach exactly the same places that every other frame can reach, and now it's about the speed of doing that, not the ability to.

Mobility really used to mean something with the original movement system, you couldn't switch between horizontal and vertical climbs at will, and you only had one warframe who could transport themselves vertically with a single cast (Nova), while Loki was limited to where he could Switch Teleport. Zephyr broke all the movements with Tailwind. Now, I'm not saying that Tailwind is bad now, it's still very good, but many players now just see it as a Bullet Jump for energy cost, which is not the way to play.

I specifically joined warframe to play Zephyr, after her release in update 12, I saw that ability reveal trailer and I was hooked. I know her charm, I know her history, I've been there for every tweak to Turbulence and every contest to pit her movement against the Parkour 2.0 system that I could be present for to defend her under the new system.

I'm also firmly in the group that believes DE don't remove abilities unless they're obsolete; none of Zephyr's abilities are obsolete, ergo none of them will be removed in favour of these. DE do, however, like to mechanically adjust and edit abilities to make them more viable, or utilise the newer coding and mechanics that exist now over the old ones they used more than two years ago.

And I'll go further to say that if you think that Titania's hovering ruined anything about Zephyr, then you, my friend, don't understand her charm, because Titania may have superior 3D Movement and Control, but Zephyr has superior 3D Mobility. You mark any point in a map, any elevation, any tile set, Zephyr can get there before Titania can. Ask Zephyr to hover in a fixed position, she can't, but why would she want to? She doesn't turn tiny for evasion, she doesn't get her own archwing weapons, she doesn't get clunky, slow movement that takes away her ability to pick things up, carry things, activate consoles, revive a team member, activate life support or any of the other down-sides to Titania's ability (I'm not saying the archwing weapons are bad, just a down-side when you're trying to level regular weapons).

Now let's be clear

I don't want this change any more than you do. As I said, I support the threads that want to update the frame so that she can compete with the newer frames and use the newer mechanics, the ones that like her abilities and just want to see them be effective and reliable at all levels of play.

But I can approach this thread with some upbeat feedback and with respect to author creativity, because I'm able to see that even if this isn't Zephyr, the abilities might be read by DE and incorporated into a new frame instead.

So what do you say? Give the thread a chance, hmm?