The War Within: 19.1.0 Ash Revisited

[Cytobel]

Hmmm...  ...soooo...

Ash eats the Bladestorm nerf we've all been feeling coming, and not a peep is said about buffing the relatively weak and somewhat useless Shuriken.

On top of that we get a watered-down Sortie list and a restriction to the farming of Kuva, which basically means we get a restriction to doing anything in the game that we haven't done thousands of times before.

I don't think this one is unpopular because it's just one or two small things guys.  It seems like there are some big problems here that had to be carefully considered and DELIBERATELY implemented.

EDIT:  Shades of Volt reworks past...

Edited November 27, 2016 by Cytobel

[_sheepy_]

1 hour ago, Klaszikmen said:

RIP Covert Lethality Ash :(

Covert Lethality hasn't worked with ash in a long time,That's a very old nerf.

 

[FosterIRL]

Pre Re-Visit

     I've played a good amount of Ash relative to my profile, and he's always been one of the coolest to me. He is Warframe's literal ninja which is reflected in his abilities, maybe except for one. Thematically he has the tools to be this master of assassination and subterfuge, but his ultimate has always been a little immersion breaking for me. I would try to play without spamming 4 (despite it costing only 25 energy with maxed efficiency) yet would always succumb to it with dread.

 Post Re-Visit

     More than ever before, Ash thematically is crisp and feels like a bad*** ninja. Bullet jumping into a roll, then sliding into a smokebomb enemies are helpless against this master of his craft. Shuriken feels much better now with the small tweaks. Perhaps it could do with a damage increase or an additional shuriken, but as it is I wont complain. And with the power audio being changed, all of his skills are less annoying to be using all the time. Smokescreen is a dream, and now a duration ash build has replaced my Loki. Teleport has always been a good engage/disengage, and having even more ways to be crafty by targeting containers and fans in spy missions is a welcomed change.

However..... Bladestorm....

     Now, I was super excited to jump in head first to the changes and see if it was more immersive, and interactive. At first it was pretty cool, using stealth solo and tagging targets of priority before executing them. But then, squad play happened. playing with my friends I noticed I ended up doing the same thing as before the changes, the only differences are one or two additional keys and shaking my camera all over the waves of enemies. I was still just watching Ash do his jumpy jumps.   

     DE, you guys are going in the right direction but here's my input. 

     If the idea of "Bladestorm" as it has been, this rampage of stabbing everybody and making them bleed, is something you guys want to maintain and perfect, i'll be supporting it. But it needs to be more interactive. For example, Ash has shadow copies. There's plenty of ways to play around with that mechanically. One example could be after pressing 4 to enable marking mode, marking targets, and then pressing 4, have Ash jump only to the first enemy marked by him or not jump at all, and let his shadow copies do all the cinematic jumping while Ash is free to perform other actions. This example thematically in my opinion goes along with his mastery of assassination and subterfuge. While his shadows are dealing with the defenses he can chase down his target ect.  

     I don't mind the synergy with "Bladestorm" and "Smokescreen" either, perhaps that could be fleshed out further with a passive change of sorts. 

     Another idea for "Bladestorm" could be pressing 4 enters marking mode, while also visually revealing his arm blades the way he does when he's doing his cinematic stabbing. This helps further clarify you are in marking mode (I had some trouble being able to tell on an infested frigate). Then what if during marking mode, your finishers would utilize the armblades, and finishers done with the arm blades had a "covert lethality" effect? The energy cost of the marks on the target from when you snuck up behind with smokescreen, or from looking at them to teleport, would be refunded once they are killed with a finisher. This mechanic could be used either stealthily or aggressively because teleport opens enemies up to finishers. And if tied to the other example, where the shadow copies are doing the cinematic attacking, Ash could actively join them by using teleport and then using melee/quick melee to perform finishers.

     These are just some of my opinions and ideas, some people may agree or disagree with them and that is alright. DE, you guys have a massive community with tons of feedback and ideas. I'm really excited and hoping we can all work together in order to make Ash, and all other frames that need thematic correction or updates, the best that they can be.

     Thank you

tldr: Ash players are still just watching "Bladestorm" the movie, smokescreen is awesome.

Edited November 27, 2016 by Swatshot00

[Tau.]

The marking system is ok functionally if that's the more manual direction DE wants to go, it's that it needs to lose that killcam cutscene. Mark a few enemies and the biggest issue of Blade Storm still remains: the ability, once set off, still has you sitting and watching the ability go off for a solid 10-15 seconds. That's the non-interactive part, that's the part that's the problem.

Certainly, all of Ash's arm-knives and those wicked arm spikes on his new Koga skin are designed to showcase those killer scenes where he pops them out and starts popping enemies with them left and right - it's practically part of his core design - but the fact of the matter is that the biggest loss in potency for the ability is that it's now more than twice the time sink it was before to cash in on what damage it does. The cutscene is still clunky for gameplay, and works against all of the smooth ninja gameplay that appears to be the intent of these changes. It takes you away from smooth melded gameplay into a completely non-interactive state, and then awkwardly plops you back down to where you were. 

Remove the cutscene and have all the mark damage delivered in an instant by the Ash shadow clones (perhaps grant a set few seconds of invulnerability while it's going on), or have it play as like a light translucent overlay on our game while it's going on and let us keep playing and doing our thing while it's going off. Keep invulnerability going while the ability is going in that latter possibility.

As it currently stands, the killcam cutscene part of Blade Storm is clunky and out-of-place. In one direction or another, it needs to go. Otherwise our master assassin (not covert lethality Ivara, damn it) is crippled in a no-home kind of state. 

Edited November 27, 2016 by SpaceBad

[Insizer]

On 11/26/2016 at 2:39 PM, chuckdm said:

I am not sure why people haven't picked up on this.  Let's disregard the fact that TWW and TSD, by their very nature, should invalidate the existance of even the regular Valkyr (if a Warframe is - SPOILER - merely a shell, then it can't feel anger, and thus cannot be created by said anger.)  She's supposed to be "forged in the labs of the Zanuka project" which is clearly not an Orokin lab.  By your own lore, Valkyr was created AFTER the fall of the Orokin Empire, so she can NOT have a Prime.

You are looking at it to literally. "Forged" is more metaphorical than it is accurate. The current Valkyr was some Valkyr (maybe prime) that was stripped of everything but her "skin" and abilities. You might call this the forging of the current Valkyr. The frames are partially organic and in someways seem to have a subconscious. The Corpus do not have the technology to make warframes as they did not even know of Transcendence nor the Operators and probably still don't understand the technical aspect of the connection even if they did now it now. 

[CrowMoxie]

First off I haven't checked to see if someone had a similar idea or had already suggested what I'm about to, so sorry if that's the

case.

 

For Ash's rework, so far I think it's pretty fair, (kinda feeling that "good" or "great" is a tad bit stronger than I feel about the rework,

but overall it's positive.) But I hear both sides on their opinions on the new Bladestorm, I'd like to give my two cents and hopefully

offer a middle ground. So first:

 

1) Shuriken. It is quite the strong ability, especially as a first power and with its augment, but I always felt weird using it. I think it's

because Ash throws two stars. It might be the Rules of Three coming into play or that it's not a satisfying number like 1, 3, 5, 7 or

10. But with just two stars that seek separate targets if possible, the weird feeling is what's the intended vibe or thought I'm

supposed to have with that power, because I feel like it's a power that chose a middle path without having a goal itself to what's it

geared for. Is it a stealthy power to quickly hurt a target quietly, or is it a crowd attack to handle multiple hostiles? So I would have

liked to have seen a touch up with that power, either making it a single star thrown or three stars thrown. I've heard talk before the

rework about his first being influenced by secondary mods but I don't know if that came from DE or not. If that was on the table, I

can understand how chaotically strong his first power could become if that was implemented without some restraint. What I'd like

to suggest is to not apply the stats from the secondary weapon at all to Shuriken and only take a percent of straight up damage

mods, possibly 50% or lower and Crit Chance mods be 70% or lower. So if Hornet Strike was giving let's say 30% damage to

pistols, that it be converted to 15% or lower for Shuriken but if Pistol Gambit was something like 50% Shuriken would get 35%,

give or take if my math is right. Maybe even a cap % for those two for balance. For other things like Crit Damage, Status or Multi-

Shot I would be curious to see uninhibited. If Shuriken was to change to a single star thrown at base (, or remain two, I'd strongly

prefer it to not remain two,) that be quite handy for stealth, but if you wanted to handle groups then applying Multi-Shot could

raise the star count to three or four. Using this change to choose how many stars you're throwing would be most enjoyable.

2) Smoke Bomb. This is a short one no worries, honestly I think is lovely where it's at, although I'm also curious to see what

would happen if the base duration of it gained one more second, I know that's almost nothing but I think after mods it could give

some precious moments to finish that ducking into cover before invisibility wears off and the alarms get triggered. As for its

augment it's just too small of a range to cloak your team. You literally have to either time it perfectly to an ally running by and cast

or tell them to stop so you can catch up and hug them real tight before casting. A range increase would be most appreciated,

maybe 1 (or 2) meters before Range mods.

3) Teleport. So close, you just need to fix issues, and probably already are, of it not working on certain items like the new resource

containers or normal Grinner containers not working after they've been opened even though the model is still there. Another thing

I've seen is possibly holding Teleport down on a spot for a charge to teleport there freely. I'm mostly ehhh about that but take that

as you will. Other than that I really love its changes, THANK YOU DE!

4) BladeStorm. Oh boy, here we go. So to just get to the point the two biggest things I'm hearing is that 1: even though it has the

marking stage, when you fire off the power you still are doing the animations like normal so you can still put the controls down

and not do anything, kinda in part not fixing his problem of just press 4 to win. And 2: that people are split in between "I love the

Bladestorm animations" and "I want to opt out of the animations and just send my shadows". I think I have a fix for this. So

another thing I felt was weird with Old man Ash's kit was that Teleport and Bladestorm didn't synergize, they clashed, especially

with Teleport's augment. It felt like one was trying to encroach on the other's job instead of working together. What I suggest is

that we give the people their options of opting out of the animation storm, and I wouldn't have thought of this without your new

synergy of Smokebomb and Bladestorm, so keep Bladestorm as is, ESPECIALLY the marking mode, I love it too much and I think

it's awesome as all get out. But when you fire it off it's just your shadows that get sent out and you free to resume what you were

previously doing. But what about the sweet animations?! Have no fear, have Teleport trigger it! What I mean by that is when in

marking mode when you use Teleport on a marked target, and only a marked target, so ally's or objects don't do it by accident, 

that instead of using 4 again to fire off Bladestorm that that cast of Teleport will trigger it instead, and now you get to be part of

the actions using those cool animations and everything resumes as normal as Bladestorm currently works. I would add that when

in marking mode using Teleport on a marked target will either cost half (so no free discounts on using Fatal Teleport on non-

marked targets) or the same as marking a single target, take your pick as what you feel is better. With this the augments currently

in they would have no conflict with this combo and in no way need changed. And yes that means for that single marked target

that triggered Bladestorm might get the effects of Fatal Teleport. Honestly I don't see that as much of a big deal as long as it just

stays at the first guy and doesn't get carried through the entire Bladestorm. Or just not count the Tele-Storm trigger as a Teleport

eligible for Fatal Teleport.

 

As a final note I really hope you guys at DE are still looking at these posts when there's so many pages now, and I don't think the

little unseen changes you made don't get much praise so I wanted to thank you, they are very much appreciated and enjoyed!

And I hope you guys, if you like this idea of mine, get this to DE's attention so they see it, and if you want to comment on this I'm

more than happy to listen and respond. Please and Thank you all!

[chuckdm]

11 hours ago, Phalanx21860 said:

Where you have basically just leveled her and not used her past that, (yes I looked at your stats).

I don't want to argue with you, but I did want to address this.  My profile says I got the regular (non-prime) Rhino to rank 28, yes?  Well I actually got him to 30.  Twice.  Did it again when it didn't register the first time because I needed the extra 400 mastery and it still didn't work.  My point being my stats are wrong, and frankly I am not alone.  I have 2 alliance mates I've spent over 12+ hours in T3/T4 missions with (once in a T4 while I was using Banshee for 87 minutes, btw) whose frames show they've only played them for 4 to 6 hours even though I personally watched them play for 10-12+ hours in those missions alone and they were already rank 30 with 2+ forma when we got there.

Yet another example of a bug that DE has failed to address for more than a year now.  I've never mentioned it because, frankly, I was hoping DE would use their development time on other things.  (Also, it has been reported by others.)

In any case, Banshee is probably my 9th least played frame.  In practice that means about 35-40 hours or so.  Is that enough time to "master" her kit?  Well, that's debatable. But it is enough time to know that she needs a rework.  I'm glad that you're so happy with her in the state she's in, but the reason she's the LEAST PLAYED FRAME IN THE GAME isn't because her skill floor is rather high.  It's because every single thing Banshee can do, there's at least one, and usually 4 or 5, frames who can do it much, much better.  She isn't even "jack of all trades, master of none."  She's "apprentice of a few trades, maybe jack of one or two."

And I love the way you speak of utilizing her whole kit and the only example you can give in 4 lengthy paragraphs is Sonar with a bow.  Right now, Banshee has 2 uses.  That's one of them.  The other is her Sound Quake augment.  In both cases, we're talking about 2/4 of her abilities having any real use (sorry, the stun from Silence is about 50x more effective at BLOWING stealth, not maintaining it) and in both cases they're universally regarded as REQUIRING augments to be considered even close to competitive.  Given that, 2/4 of her kit should be outright replaced, and I'd consider it a personal affront if DE reworks only Sonic Boom and Silence without then making Sonar and Sound Quake synergize with them in some level.

In any case, don't trust the stats.  Known bug and all that.

[chuckdm]

2 hours ago, Insizer said:

You are looking at it to literally. "Forged" is more metaphorical than it is accurate. The current Valkyr was some Valkyr (maybe prime) that was stripped of everything but her "skin" and abilities. You might call this the forging of the current Valkyr. The frames are partially organic and in someways seem to have a subconscious. The Corpus do not have the technology to make warframes as they did not even know of Transcendence nor the Operators and probably still don't understand the technical aspect of the connection even if they did now it now. 

According to the wiki, you're right...mostly.  See here.  Long story short, she did exist prior to Salad V's experiments in her Gersemi form.  That brings up its own continuity issues, of course.  The idea that she even has an ability called "Hysteria" BEFORE she was driven mad is a little strange, though not entirely impossible.  That said, Valkyr Prime's art design is only about a dozen times closer to post-Salad Valkyr than any resemblance with Gersemi Valkyr, so it still doesn't really fit.

In any case, the fact that Banshee was one of the original 8 frames while Valkyr wasn't added until about 8 months later means that, even if Valkyr Prime is canon (I'm still not willing to say she is, but she COULD BE if they reworked her look a bit to more closely resemble Gersemi Valkyr) then there's still no legit reason why we haven't gotten Banshee Prime first.

I'll wager $10 that we'll get Mirage Prime next and Banshee will continue to get passed over for another year.  *sigh*  (Note: I'm wagering this against DE.  You other guys don't get $10 if they totally mindf**k me and actually do prime Mirage next.)

[Bostyan]

ASH can`t kill enemies lvl 100 with str 170 (3000 damage) but old ASH kill enemies with only str 130 or even less. Not only that Rising Storm mod doesn`t even works anymore I think ASH is now the worse frame in game.

Why would anyone use ASH now, if he can kill enemies with weapon faster without mark them :)

I am sure no one need to mark 3 enemies 2x then 4 enemies 3x and 5 enemies 1x because before he will do then they will kill him or he will kill enemies with weapon faster. Not only that before he will mark enemies 1x , 2x and 3x will team mates kill enemies before he complete. I really don`t see any reason why ASH need 1x , 2x and 3x mark.

For end Marks can only be seen up to 5m is really pointless!!

What ASH need was Mark option and stop option thats was all that ASH need!!!! What they did with ASH is sad really sad1

[ClemTheHumanNaplam]

PLZ for the love of ash, can you re-re work ash's blade storm. i have this idea where he goes into a kill mode, sorta like exalted blade and it constantly drains energry, like exalted blade, and you press e with your crosshair on an enemy and you teleport and do the stabbystuff on them.

[I-Am-MoMoJoJo]

So, since the change to the Sortie drop table, here is what I have gotten, a Lesser Vazarin Lense the first time, not bad, not great, but I'll take it, a Forma, I do not need any more Forma and I don't even have as huge of a stockpile as most people do, it's a silly reward to give out in a Sortie, lastly, for todays Sortie, 2K endo, seriously, again, this should just be taken out of the drop table, its actually useless, most mods I want to level up need far more than that, and there are so many better ways of getting endo that it's actually moronic to put it in as a sortie reward at all, let alone leave it as one, especially as such a poultry amount, the new Sortie drop table is actually a lot worse than the old one, I mean I knew it was bad already, but after these rewards and hearing what my friends are getting as rewards as well, it's just not cool, I'm considering not doing Sorties any more because it simply is not worth spending all that time to get such a bad reward which is not good considering I want Riven mods or Catalysts, heck I'll even take a reactor even though I have too many already, lenses are decent, I wont say no to more lenses, but the good stuff is just far too outweighed by the bad stuff, DE, you need to change this.

[_Raiklar_]

so far my problem is not with the targeting of three enemy types it that it only targets 3 enemies period. and wont allow for different types because it targets the first 3 targets it comes in contact with first so it doesn't allow for selection.

[Punnilingus]

Guys, I have found a highly effective way to use Ash - all of his abilities, minus the shurikens. It isn't what Ash players necessarily wanted, but it is viable and VERY effective. 

I put the guide on Steam if you're interested: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=808117689

Rate it up on Steam if you like it and spread the word so that us Ash lovers can get back in the game, because DE doesn't listen to us anyway. Gl, Hf. 

[Nefarious-EN-]

Nitain Extract = useless sortie reward.. otherwise nice changes.

[RunicZeus]

Note: i soloed this sortie. We get a couple nitain extract alerts each day. So then why do I have to wait a whole day for a sortie just to get 3 nitain? After grinding so hard at a mobile def just to get this reward is a slap to the face.

[LightBriite]

On 11/26/2016 at 6:48 PM, _sheepy_ said:

So now you know what i think?

That is all quantity,If you don't understand the difference then you should probably not comment anymore.

Yes, because me disagreeing with you and you resorting to snarky remarks is totally remarkable. 

[LightBriite]

 

2 minutes ago, vnorberto said:

I do not understand why you need to change a well-established character!
Ash belonged among the best characters and now will use less safe with this amendment.
Why do not they rather the ability to teleport to other why the fourth to be able to burn screw up!
Do not worse than the characters we intervene in the opponents will be stronger (such sortie, mastery 22-23).
Please do not ruin this game back and I ask on behalf of many old Ash ability to fourth when he worked well !

 

Firstly, nothing of what you said made any sense. Secondly, Ash is one of the most hated amongst the community, and not only that this rework actually changed NOTHING in regards to dmg other than allowing players to choose who to mark. You ask on behalf of ash 4 to win players that aren't even good and now are angry over a change that didn't do anything other than make him be less of a kill @#&*(. 

[I-Am-MoMoJoJo]

While I agree he's not making sense, Ash's DMG was actually severely hampered because of the time between his 4's is now much larger, meaning his overall DPS is far lower.

Edit: for the players most favorite Warframe, Ash came first in the number of votes, so ash hate is probably much lower than people realize.

while 4 builds generally take less skill, this games skill sealing is relatively low in the first place with the most amount of it being in builds and strategy.

pressing 4 to kill many enemies is the same as clicking with a Tonkor to kill many enemies.

Edited November 28, 2016 by I-Am-MoMoJoJo

[LightBriite]

 

3 minutes ago, I-Am-MoMoJoJo said:

While I agree he's not making sense, Ash's DMG was actually severely hampered because of the time between his 4's is now much larger, meaning his overall DPS is far lower.

Doing play testing now.

[chaotea]

On 25/11/2016 at 7:51 PM, CGs_Knackie said:

Formas & Nitain into the sorties? :c

Its only been put in as alternatives to the 2000 endo, so now if you would have got the endo, you instead get a chance for something else instead.

[Anceto]

7 minutes ago, LightBriite said:

 

Firstly, nothing of what you said made any sense. Secondly, Ash is one of the most hated amongst the community, and not only that this rework actually changed NOTHING in regards to dmg other than allowing players to choose who to mark. You ask on behalf of ash 4 to win players that aren't even good and now are angry over a change that didn't do anything other than make him be less of a kill @#&*(. 

do you know why he's hated amongst the community? It's because when he's in bladestorm mode, enemies affected cannot be harmed by other players, this fix changes NOTHING on that part, so now on top of still being annoying to party with, he's also less effective in teamplay and dps

[I-Am-MoMoJoJo]

This is not true because 2K endo is still a thing, so it is not an alternative, it's just dilution, especially considering none of them are common which is where 2K endo is.

[chaotea]

13 minutes ago, vnorberto said:

I do not understand why you need to change a well-established character!
Ash belonged among the best characters and now will use less safe with this amendment.
Why do not they rather the ability to teleport to other why the fourth to be able to burn screw up!
Do not worse than the characters we intervene in the opponents will be stronger (such sortie, mastery 22-23).
Please do not ruin this game back and I ask on behalf of many old Ash ability to fourth when he worked well !

As someone who doesnt main ash, its probably because you get ash's in mission who just constantly bladestorm. Its powerful. but really boring to be in the same game.

Remember aswell that Mesa used to have a 4th that was just as strong, and that got nerfed much quicker.

[Yuteruka]

can i buy Nikana ryu skin after getting Ash koga skin?

i mean i didnt know that there was the bundle for them before i just got koga skin through arsenal.

i still like to get Nikana ryu skin.

i understand the bundle is cheaper but i dont understand why you cant find the way to get them separately.

Edited November 28, 2016 by Yuteruka

[LightBriite]

Just now, Ferrick said:

do you know why he's hated amongst the community? It's because when he's in bladestorm mode, enemies affected cannot be harmed by other players, this fix changes NOTHING on that part, so now on top of still being annoying to party with, he's also less effective in teamplay and dps

Wrong, you can kill enemies, before he can even attack them, I've played with Ashes since the rework and he isn't nearly as much a kill as before, matter of fact that's one of the main complains Ash players have whined about. Ever heard of seeking Shuriken? It's a great thing that works just like Banshee's Sonic Fracture.