Ash Revisited Feedback Megathread

[MudShadow]

Just now, Nazrethim said:

Silly rabbit, what will happen is that people will just sit on their arses casting BS and nothing else. Sure we who play him to it's fulll will rampage trough enemy ranks as our clones destroy them.

Doesn't mean it doesn't have to be considered. Unlike you, and many more, I want Ash to shine in both sides, so I throw ideas that would work in both modes, without being broken, unimpressive or useless.

Nobody is going to be sitting and spamming Bladestorm in its current rendition. It costs too much energy and there other frames much better at doing that (ie Mesa/Equinox).

[Nazrethim]

1 minute ago, (PS4)CoolD2108 said:

No combo substain ~ thus no perma x4 multiplier skyrocketing the damage. 

You forget Rising Storm, which is due for a Buff since Body Count was implemented. In the thread I originally posted, RIsing Storm would (when maxed) increase combo counter by 10s and counter gain by 0.25 (so instead of going 1x>2x>3x it would go 1x>2.25>3.5)

1 minute ago, (PS4)CoolD2108 said:

Ash does not fall on nullies. 1 mark anywhere is enough, neather naramon nor trickery are affected and one boosted slide kills you nullies no matter the level. Anything else indeed falls on teleport, BS, shuriken amped damage.

1 mark? why not use teleport then. Or you are confusing it with Old Bladestorm, which would tear apart everyone, including the bubbled nullifier, if you casted it on any nearby unit. Naramon and Trickery are NOT Ash. And trickery no longer works with Blade Storm outside of low level. And again, your strategy only works at max efficiency and cheese.

1 minute ago, (PS4)CoolD2108 said:

when

IF

Limbo already got nerfed. Notice how they only nerfed Limboom cast-cancel that blew up everything.

1 minute ago, (PS4)CoolD2108 said:

I main him and use his kit to perfection. Can you both say the same

I did that even before his nerfvisit. Can you claim the same? Don't think so, Metaer.

1 minute ago, (PS4)CoolD2108 said:

Best comment so far btw.

>"i hate his ult" "he can't do anything without...."

>"you like him and don't want to feed my ego/ambitions him changed? You must hate him"

Bye guys, pushed this bs long enough.

Good ridance.

[Nazrethim]

Just now, MudShadow said:

Nobody is going to be sitting and spamming Bladestorm in its current rendition. It costs too much energy and there other frames much better at doing that (ie Mesa/Equinox).

I know. If you read the whole thread, or at least my discussing with CoolID, you will notice I think his abilities are due for an actual rework that expands his toolkit, teampotential, mass slaughter potential and interactivity, as well as being easier to balance for Conclave, all in a single stab.

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

7 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

I did that even before his nerfvisit. Can you claim the same? Don't think so, Metaer.

yep. Beat prenerf mesas in kills on his last meta cause, ya know, perfect use of what frames give and all instead of complaining. Actually liking a game instead of trying to make it my own by forum comments.

Bye.

Edited April 30, 2017 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[(XBOX)SweatyPick3L]

33 minutes ago, (PS4)CoolD2108 said:

yep. Beat prenerf mesas in kills on his last meta cause, ya know, perfect use of what frames give and all instead of complaining. Actually liking a game instead of trying to make it my own by forum comments.

Bye.

Lamo...dude I'd make u rage quit using mag, mesa, saryn  .. vs "your ash" lol  stop trying noob. Bye Felicia 

Edited April 30, 2017 by (XB1)FCastle74

[(XBOX)Angryspy101]

I still don't see any real reason why ash NEEDS to be reworked again. the energy cost is suppose to balance bladestorm's crazy armor bypassing damage that scales with the melee combo, making it agrueble one of the best damage abilities in late game(I'm not counting abilities that use CL like teleport). Sure being forced to use smokescreen in order to not use a lot of energy sucks, but on higher level you should use smokescreen anyway for survivability, plus smokescreen gives ash access to stealth melee multiplier which makes melee stupid strong. Teleport is still a good single target ability. shuriken is probably the only ability that needs to be tweaked. I still see a LOT of ash in games, but I never see zephyr, hydroid, or oberon.

Edited April 30, 2017 by (XB1)CFE Angry

[Nazrethim]

1 hour ago, (Xbox One)CFE Angry said:

I still don't see any real reason why ash NEEDS to be reworked again. the energy cost is suppose to balance bladestorm's crazy armor bypassing damage that scales with the melee combo,

Except we didn't need that ridiculous cost, DE stated they would buff bladestorm in some way to compensate for the marking mechanic, but unless you consider "being able to open trade chat while blade storming" a buff they only nerfed stuff.

Just for comparison. Old BS used 100 energy on 18 targets.

Now current BS needs 270 energy for that same amount of targets. That's a 170% increase in cost. And that isn't accounting for all 3 marks. If we acount for 3 marks the cost for the same amount of targets skyrocket to 810! That's more energy than Ash has with maxed Primed Flow.

Quote

 Sure being forced to use smokescreen in order to not use a lot of energy sucks, but on higher level you should use smokescreen anyway for survivability, plus smokescreen gives ash access to stealth melee multiplier which makes melee stupid strong. Teleport is still a good single target ability. shuriken is probably the only ability that needs to be tweaked. I still see a LOT of ash in games, but I never see zephyr, hydroid, or oberon.

Sure, smoke screen reduces the cost by 5 (base) per mark. So let's do the math again. Always using old default maximum of 18 targets to keep the comparison.

10 per mark for 18 marks is 180, still nearly double what old bs costed. Add 3 marks and the cost goes to 540. Still F-ing dumb.

Teleport only works if you have the augment, because half the time the enemy will be knocked in a position you can't initiate a finisher, be under an aura or effect that renders it inmune to finishers or start a groundpunch or other animation the very instant you teleport which makes them inmune to it. Teleport to objects seems good on paper, but in practice you are relying on RNG to have an object positioned just where you want to go, and if you teleport to big enough objects you have a chance of getting stuck inside it. Smoke Screen is, for lack of better words, lame. It's invisibility with a pointless stagger and shorter duration. And shuriken has the issue of not being able to choose your target because the thing goes to whatever enemy was closer to you when you try to use it a mid-long range.

Ash is right now in a position similar to what Warlocks held back in Vanilla WoW: They were capable of tremendous DPS, offer crucial raid support in the form of damage debuffs, health "potions", player summoning and revives, as well as ultimate tank in one specific endgame boss encounter; they also (for skilled players) were able to crush multiple opponents in PvP. You may think that they were awesome to play, right? wrong, their QoL was in the garbage and they had what was probably THE most annoying resource mechanic in the game.

Ash is in a similar position, except for the PvP part, in WF Ash's PvP only advantage is that he can devote all his energy to channeling with little to no drawback. BS only use is to get the Power Kills challenge, and even then you can only use it on targets who are already one foot on the grave, because anyone with health above 70% with a bit of shield (let alone full ehp target) will just feell a scratch from it. Teleport sounds awesome on paper, teleport 60m instantly, until you factor it that it can't be used on airborne targets (and Conclave is all about parkour so you are scr*wed) and requires a target (which means tactical positioning is next to imposible) and doesn't do anything on the target (which means it's a glorified Bulletjump that costs 30 energy).

It's true that Zephyr, Oberon, Hydroid and some others need reworks too, but DE used Ash's chance to get reworked to nerf his ultimate into the ground while reworking jacksh*t and not fixing most of the issues with the frame. It was, for all intents and purposes, a straight nerf and a betrayal on DE's part.

Full list of issues here:

Spoiler

Wanna compare old vs current? Here I go:

Pre-revisit issues:

-Shuriken tracks whatever it wants.

-Smoke Screen is just "Invisibility but with a pointless stagger"

-Smoke Screen can't be cast while on the move or mid air

-Teleport doesn't work as a mobility tool because it requires a living unit

-Blade Storm is P42W

-Blade Storm requires no input other than aiming in the general direction of an enemy

-Blade Storm unskippable cutscene

+Conclave issue (includes most issues from above)

-Smoke Screen: breaks if you sneeze

-Smoke Screen duration too short to be of any meaningful use

-Teleport does nothing to the target, while requiring one making it a sh*tty mobility tool or rather a glorified bulletjump that costs 30 energy.

-Blade Storm has pointblank range

-Blade Storm damage is so sh*tty that it makes it useless

 

Now let's see Issues solved vs Issues created by Revisit:

-Smoke Screen can now be cast mid air and while moving (issue solved)

-Teleport can be cast in objects (issue partially solved, as you need sheer luck there will be a box where you want to go)

-Teleport often bugs you and get you stuck inside objects (issue created)

-Blade Storm is no longer P42W (issue solved)

-Blade Storm energy cost increased by 200-600% (issue created)

-Blade Storm marking mode doesn't encourage tactical marking, just spinning the camera like you're having a seizure (issue created)

-Blade Storm duration increased cause clones no longer assisst (issue created)

Conclave:

-Shuriken damage nerfed and tracking removed (issue created)

-Blade Storm issues created:

  +marks have 8m range and dissapear if target goes beyond that

  +Ash loses all mobility while marking mode is active and can't parkour.

  +Ash is vulnerable to damage mid animation by stray fire or AoE effects

  +If target dies while having a Mark, Ash doesn't get energy refunded

  +If Ash dies while a mark is active he loses all energy

 

Issues created vs solved: 4 vs 2 +1 partially solved but not quite.

Conclave issues created vs Solved: 6 vs 0

 

[(XBOX)Angryspy101]

36 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Except we didn't need that ridiculous cost, DE stated they would buff bladestorm in some way to compensate for the marking mechanic, but unless you consider "being able to open trade chat while blade storming" a buff they only nerfed stuff.

Just for comparison. Old BS used 100 energy on 18 targets.

Now current BS needs 270 energy for that same amount of targets. That's a 170% increase in cost. And that isn't accounting for all 3 marks. If we acount for 3 marks the cost for the same amount of targets skyrocket to 810! That's more energy than Ash has with maxed Primed Flow.

Sure, smoke screen reduces the cost by 5 (base) per mark. So let's do the math again. Always using old default maximum of 18 targets to keep the comparison.

10 per mark for 18 marks is 180, still nearly double what old bs costed. Add 3 marks and the cost goes to 540. Still F-ing dumb.

Teleport only works if you have the augment, because half the time the enemy will be knocked in a position you can't initiate a finisher, be under an aura or effect that renders it inmune to finishers or start a groundpunch or other animation the very instant you teleport which makes them inmune to it. Teleport to objects seems good on paper, but in practice you are relying on RNG to have an object positioned just where you want to go, and if you teleport to big enough objects you have a chance of getting stuck inside it. Smoke Screen is, for lack of better words, lame. It's invisibility with a pointless stagger and shorter duration. And shuriken has the issue of not being able to choose your target because the thing goes to whatever enemy was closer to you when you try to use it a mid-long range.

Ash is right now in a position similar to what Warlocks held back in Vanilla WoW: They were capable of tremendous DPS, offer crucial raid support in the form of damage debuffs, health "potions", player summoning and revives, as well as ultimate tank in one specific endgame boss encounter; they also (for skilled players) were able to crush multiple opponents in PvP. You may think that they were awesome to play, right? wrong, their QoL was in the garbage and they had what was probably THE most annoying resource mechanic in the game.

Ash is in a similar position, except for the PvP part, in WF Ash's PvP only advantage is that he can devote all his energy to channeling with little to no drawback. BS only use is to get the Power Kills challenge, and even then you can only use it on targets who are already one foot on the grave, because anyone with health above 70% with a bit of shield (let alone full ehp target) will just feell a scratch from it. Teleport sounds awesome on paper, teleport 60m instantly, until you factor it that it can't be used on airborne targets (and Conclave is all about parkour so you are scr*wed) and requires a target (which means tactical positioning is next to imposible) and doesn't do anything on the target (which means it's a glorified Bulletjump that costs 30 energy).

It's true that Zephyr, Oberon, Hydroid and some others need reworks too, but DE used Ash's chance to get reworked to nerf his ultimate into the ground while reworking jacksh*t and not fixing most of the issues with the frame. It was, for all intents and purposes, a straight nerf and a betrayal on DE's part.

Full list of issues here:

  Reveal hidden contents

Wanna compare old vs current? Here I go:

Pre-revisit issues:

-Shuriken tracks whatever it wants.

-Smoke Screen is just "Invisibility but with a pointless stagger"

-Smoke Screen can't be cast while on the move or mid air

-Teleport doesn't work as a mobility tool because it requires a living unit

-Blade Storm is P42W

-Blade Storm requires no input other than aiming in the general direction of an enemy

-Blade Storm unskippable cutscene

+Conclave issue (includes most issues from above)

-Smoke Screen: breaks if you sneeze

-Smoke Screen duration too short to be of any meaningful use

-Teleport does nothing to the target, while requiring one making it a sh*tty mobility tool or rather a glorified bulletjump that costs 30 energy.

-Blade Storm has pointblank range

-Blade Storm damage is so sh*tty that it makes it useless

 

Now let's see Issues solved vs Issues created by Revisit:

-Smoke Screen can now be cast mid air and while moving (issue solved)

-Teleport can be cast in objects (issue partially solved, as you need sheer luck there will be a box where you want to go)

-Teleport often bugs you and get you stuck inside objects (issue created)

-Blade Storm is no longer P42W (issue solved)

-Blade Storm energy cost increased by 200-600% (issue created)

-Blade Storm marking mode doesn't encourage tactical marking, just spinning the camera like you're having a seizure (issue created)

-Blade Storm duration increased cause clones no longer assisst (issue created)

Conclave:

-Shuriken damage nerfed and tracking removed (issue created)

-Blade Storm issues created:

  +marks have 8m range and dissapear if target goes beyond that

  +Ash loses all mobility while marking mode is active and can't parkour.

  +Ash is vulnerable to damage mid animation by stray fire or AoE effects

  +If target dies while having a Mark, Ash doesn't get energy refunded

  +If Ash dies while a mark is active he loses all energy

 

Issues created vs solved: 4 vs 2 +1 partially solved but not quite.

Conclave issues created vs Solved: 6 vs 0

 

Again if you use Bladestorm smartly, you won't have to worry about that energy cost, like every other Warframe you can just add efficiency mods on ash that bladestorm energy cost will barely effect your energy pool at all. Just in case you say "well, use ash without any power mods on him and see how good he is" every Warframe be way less effective without power mods in this game. I literally never had a problem with shuriken's tracking even before it got the improved from the rework. In PvP shuriken is probably the only ability that is useless, smokescreen allow you to get away, that "glorified bulletjump" is a nice anti camping ability, you have no idea how many times I would get the jump on somebody who were camping behind a corner/shield or trying to snipe me from a distance. Bladestorm is super easy to use since you can just parkour to you enemies and double cast it in like 2 secs, and even if you don't kill them you can finish them off while they get up from the knockdown, there have been times where I would get double kills with it in small rooms. 

[Nazrethim]

24 minutes ago, (Xbox One)CFE Angry said:

Again if you use Bladestorm smartly, you won't have to worry about that energy cost, like every other Warframe you can just add efficiency mods on ash that bladestorm energy cost will barely effect your energy pool at all.

Except no other frames is forced into efficiency.

Quote

Just in case you say "well, use ash without any power mods on him and see how good he is" every Warframe be way less effective without power mods in this game.

way less effective isn't the same as "run dry after marking more than 10 dudes"

Quote

I literally never had a problem with shuriken's tracking even before it got the improved from the rework.

I stopped having problem with it since I learned to not use it while there are more than ONE enemy within LoS, otherwise the shurikens split or fly into the target I wasn't aiming at.

Quote

In PvP shuriken is probably the only ability that is useless, smokescreen allow you to get away, that "glorified bulletjump" is a nice anti camping ability, you have no idea how many times I would get the jump on somebody who were camping behind a corner/shield or trying to snipe me from a distance.

And then watch them bulletjump away instantly for zero cost. Teleport only works if you have a shotgun, again, enforced weapon (non)choice due to bad design. And camping isn't really a thing in Conclave. Or at least it isn't in PC, due to Oro mechanic.

Quote

Bladestorm is super easy to use since you can just parkour to you enemies and double cast it in like 2 secs, and even if you don't kill them you can finish them off while they get up from the knockdown, there have been times where I would get double kills with it in small rooms. 

For a supposedly multikill tool, you can at best get 1 or 2 targets. And while Excalibur and others can wipe you clean of most of your health and your shield in a single hit (if not outright oneshot you), BS doesn't deal enough damage to break shields . And again, it's only useful if you have a shotgun or automatic weapon to finish the job or already weakened the target to less than 70-80% health, anything slower and your target escapes or kills you. I've died many times because I saw someone, usually a frost, banshee or mag, mark-release, they start their ultimate at the same time, and I die mid animation scratching their shields or not even dealing actual damage. Nevermind that if they die by something that isn't me, the mark isn't refunded. Ash needs massive buffs in Conclave to put his abilities on par with everybody else (or at least make BS spread over energy, if you only use it in one target it's a death sentence, if you used on the max 4 targets it's the scratch)

Edit: Or rather, instead of buffing them into broken (because current mechanics can't be buffed without becoming OP) rework the damn frame in a way that works in both enviroment with little to no changes.

Edited April 30, 2017 by Nazrethim

[W01fe]

Basically.  Loki is straight up better frame with how the game is currently played. 

1-high levels ash's extra hp means nothing. 

2-loki is Faster wich matters due to the speed running nature of groups. 

3-loki invis lasts longer... Ash's stagger is mostly useless.  

4-while there is little use for loki's 1 and 3.  His 4 is always useful (minus infested wich you can mod it to still be useful) and his 1 combined with speed carries him. 

5-even when you find use for one of ash's moves even with modding they have potential to be useless or just extremely niche useful.  If group runs cp there is zero reason to run seeking Shuriken.   No reason to run fatal teleport in Anything but solo.  So again he's reliant on smoke wich is worse loki invis.  In a group there is just zero reason to run him over loki.  He needs to be made more group friendly. 

 

Even his smokescreen mod is worse then ivaras base invis arrow. 

[StonedMakak]

I, for one, have no idea why people consider Ash reworked in the first place. Bladestorm got nerfed by increasing the cost and slowing down the spam (and justly so I might add), while his other skills got minor tweaks that took what, 15 minutes to implement? 

I said this before - If DE was actually committed to improving Ash through this rework, DE would put actual effort into improving the cutscene. They didn't, they left it as buggy as it has ever been. Meaning they were content in just nerfing Bladestorm, along with some QoL changes that could fit in a weekly hotfix two years ago. Just look at Nidus, Octavia or Limbo if you want to see what it looks like when DE actually gives a damn about ability design.

Anything to make Bladestorm , and thus Ash, less of a snooze-fest is alright in my book. At this point the rule of thumb for Ash reworks seems to be agreeing with @Nazrethim.

But don't hold your breath OP. This is Warframe - for a major part of the community, as long as pretty, colourful numbers are popping on screen, the game might as well be and excel spreadsheet with a veeeery fancy UI.

 

[W01fe]

His 1 is only useful with a mod and only of nobody runs cp

His 2 is useful but strictly worse them loki 

His 3 is useless without mod and with mod it's only useful for solo 

His 4 is only useful to Regen shields (immunity frames) and is both clunkier and slower than most other frames 4's that focus on killing. 

 

End result is you play him solo or he's a poor man's loki.  His higher hp means nothing.  He's slower. 

His modded 1 could be useful if cp didn't exist. 

 

He desperately needs his skills to have uses/be useful without mods.  He desperately needs a team skill.  His modded 3 is worse than ivaras arrow. 

[Nazrethim]

1 hour ago, tisdfogg said:

I, for one, have no idea why people consider Ash reworked in the first place. Bladestorm got nerfed by increasing the cost and slowing down the spam (and justly so I might add), while his other skills got minor tweaks that took what, 15 minutes to implement? 

I said this before - If DE was actually committed to improving Ash through this rework, DE would put actual effort into improving the cutscene. They didn't, they left it as buggy as it has ever been. Meaning they were content in just nerfing Bladestorm, along with some QoL changes that could fit in a weekly hotfix two years ago. Just look at Nidus, Octavia or Limbo if you want to see what it looks like when DE actually gives a damn about ability design.

Indeed. And let's consider this: Limbo took about 2-3 months between they announced he would be getting a rework and the actual release. Oberon took a month and is decent.

Ash "revisit" took a year between the words "Ash" and "Rework" were put in the same sentence, and shortly after the rework came Nidus, with his uber abilities, and they were working too on Octavie.

And savvy players pointed out the marking system would be terrible since day 1, and they still went ahead with it.

What probably happened is that they set to work on Ash, then they got busy with TWW, then with Nidus and Octavia, and the art team showed up at the office with the Deluxe Skin ready. So they released what they had (and had forgotten by that point) and painted it as "revisit" (notice it's the first time the word "revisit" was used, which gives a hint they didn't change anything really, though the terms Revisit and Rework have been rendered interchangeable with Limbo revisit).

1 hour ago, tisdfogg said:

Anything to make Bladestorm , and thus Ash, less of a snooze-fest is alright in my book. At this point the rule of thumb for Ash reworks seems to be agreeing with @Nazrethim.

It's just that, after nearly two years of reading suggestions, making my own, and discussing with fellow Ash fans, the most agreed solution to all issues points to a carefully designed Stance Ultimate. How is it implemented? There are many ideas for that.

Personally I think just giving it the old bladestorm multikill trigger on Finisher attacks, making marking free of cost and Ash's second (free of cost) passive, linking Shuriken and Teleport to it for tracking shurikens (with option of aimed non-tracking shurikens) and starting current BS with Teleport (with non-marked teleport being a Teleport-to-Location with a radial stagger/finisher opening) would be enough and put Ash in a very solid position without automatic nukes, summonings that do the job for you, or enforcing max efficiency builds, and would make the cinematic chain finisher optional. Solves everything in a single stab with already existing mechanics.

But that's me, others have different (and impresive/awesome) stance ultimate ideas too.

1 hour ago, tisdfogg said:

But don't hold your breath OP. This is Warframe - for a major part of the community, as long as pretty, colourful numbers are popping on screen, the game might as well be and excel spreadsheet with a veeeery fancy UI.

This made me laugh a lot. Thank you.

[Nazrethim]

2 hours ago, W01fe said:

-snip-

and BS, powerful as it may be, requires full efficiency just to not leave Ash dry for marking more than 10 dudes.

[W01fe]

Edited: 5/2/17 for clarity and updated ideas.

 

The goal of this thread is to offer relatively simple ideas of changes that could help flesh out ash's somewhat lackluster kit.  The idea is to add minor synergy as well as uses to some of his base skills that are relatively pointless when not modded.  I say minor synergy because the goal is not to force ash players to be pressing every single ability all the time.

Why make this?  Ash is fun, I enjoy playing him a lot.  While i don't feel useless in a group, i do feel a bit worse off then a loki, and beyond my smoke screen and MAYBE a modded shuriken or teleport, i feel like im just playing my weapons more then im playing my frame.  So lets start from the top.

what is Ash's identity:  That of the most ninja of the ninja's, and assassin.  He focuses on slash damage with his passive and finisher effects (bladestorm, fatal teleport, unmodded teleport opens up targets to finishers, stealth, etc). He has hidden blades that he uses during bladestorm animations. Lets try to keep and even enforce this identity.

1-Shuriken, you fire it fast and it auto tracks targets.  it feels powerful at early stages of the game but in later stages, especialy in higher level missions, it feels more like a waste of energy.  I think it would be a BAD change to merely add damage scaling, because it would either still be useless (hi oberon's new 1) or too powerful and create a build for ash where all he does is spam the 1 button (sorta like how he used to spam 4, and can now spam 3 to a lesser extent with fatal teleport).  

Proposed idea:  Ash likes slash and has predominantly used as a melee frame, lets give shuriken a minor use, one that will encourage occasional use of the ability at a base level but not encourage spamming.  Lets have every time you hit a target with a shuriken it adds to the combo counter as if you struck the target with melee.  I know i have been on multiple missions, especially when in a team, that im stretching the limit of body count's timer and risk losing my multiplier simply due to not getting to a target in time or a teamate kills said target before i can hit it.  This should help you on those occasions.

2-Smoke Screen:  it's cast animation is faster then Loki's and it doesnt stop your forward momentum to cast.  That is honestly my number 1 reason to prefer it to loki's despite his being a longer duration.  It also causes a small stagger that is supposed to open up a target to finishers.  Truth be told beyond grineer shield enemies i've gotten no real use out of the stagger or the finisher.  It does make it safer to use in the thick of things however.  Despite this skill getting a rap as a worse loki invisibility (objectively it kinda is if you only consider the vastly inferior duration)  I do not think it needs to be better then Loki's.  But it is the perfect skill to offer some utility to to make your teamates  like you a bit more.

Proposed idea:  the idea is to have power duration make its initial smokebomb effect last longer and power range increase the radius of the smoke bomb effect.  Any allies that walk into the smoke bombed area receive the benefit of stealth while they are within the area and for x seconds after they leave it or the effect ends.  To simplify this could also mean that Ash's invisibility doesnt get affected by power duration anymore.  Probably capping out around 15-16 seconds(wich is longer then right now but wont be affected by duration like i said).  This will allow you tho to "refresh" your invisibility during smokescreen's cooldown simply by walking through the smoke screen effect.  You could change the existing smokescreen mod to causing a Radiation effect when enemies stay within the cloud.  

3-Teleport:  Currently there is little reason to use this unmodded.  The distances can easily be overcome with proper parkour and opening up the target to finishers is nice in theory but in practice usually is a waste of energy when you can stealth and go over and whack them in the face.  

Proposed idea:  add the fatal teleport effect to the base ability.  Replace Fatal teleport mod with a mod that grants you 3-5 seconds of invisibility after using teleport.  Perhaps rename the abiltiy to assassinate for flavor.

4-Bladestorm:  Bladestorm used to be this press4towin mechanic, that wasnt good.  Now its a press4towinsoslowlythattherestofyourteamalreadydiditforyou.  Wich is also not good.  Plus it still has that cutscene.  While you can take advantage of its invuln frames to regen shields, this matters little as you progress in the game.  

Proposed idea:  Total Rework, could potentially still call it bladestorm however.  What we want is to control ash but still use those nifty wrist blades.  Instead make bladestorm a stance similar to exalted blade or exalted bow.  But with mechanics unique to it.  Ash extends his hidden blades and has unique attack animations for them (just as exalted blade has unique attack animations).  However instead of a focused assault, you slash wildly all around you very fast.  Each slash creates a Energy trail/whip that extends from the blade itself to a fairly good range.(note: this range is nowhere near exalted blades air slashes and will not extend beyond say...max range atterax spin as example)  While the blades do pure slash damage, The energy "whips" do pure 100% slash status procs.  Furthermore a suitable mod would be When a target dies from your slash damage procs while your 4 is active the body will explode a second later causing a knockdown effect in a radius around the corpse.  

 

End result: Ash can still do all the things he can do now (minus press4 and watch a cutscene).  He is slightly more group friendly with his smokescreen change.  His 1 serves a niche use that makes you want to use it.  His teleport can be used to kill problem targets quickly.  His 4 is more interactive and expands upon his theme of slash damage and finishers. You can stll build him towards seeking shuriken, you can build him with fatal teleport solo builds (no more broken then ivara prowling everywhere in solo honestly),  and you have a new way to play with his 4.

 

Edited May 3, 2017 by W01fe

[(PSN)A-aron406]

I think a solution to BS would be for Ash's 4 to work like the arrow storm ability in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. It would work pretty similarly to pre-rework. Ash would cast his 4 and shadows of ash would do the killing animation that he would have done. This would solve being killed by an enemy after leaving the animation as you can cast the ability and continue moving and it would still stray from the press 4 to win that he was previously because he wouldn't enter an invincibility period. Additionally, for a tougher enemy, maybe ash could hold his 4 and then release it on a single enemy so that the shadows do the animation until that target is dead. This would be affected by power strength and range obviously and as far as the details of dmg and energy cost, I'm not so sure on. 

Edited May 1, 2017 by (PS4)A-aron406
ideas came after

[(PSN)lhbuch]

On 27/04/2017 at 1:41 PM, InsanityKey said:

Personally I just turn on Bladestorm and then spazz out with my mouse across the whole room and it marks everything 3 times.

Yeah. there was a sortie defense this week and it was exactly the strategy. 

[midtarget]

uhh, one, its not "simple,"creating animations and AI for new entities is never simple, two, you have no idea how to use ash, he's assassinframe, not stealthframe, loki's invis makes him invisible, ash's invis makes him invisible, stuns, and attracts enemies making them one big clump to attack, invincible taunts would be too OP, making him back to noob-loved press 4 to win

the brief invisibility on teleport might be useful, but it opens enemies to finishers, and his one is nice

[W01fe]

16 minutes ago, midtarget said:

uhh, one, its not "simple,"creating animations and AI for new entities is never simple, two, you have no idea how to use ash, he's assassinframe, not stealthframe, loki's invis makes him invisible, ash's invis makes him invisible, stuns, and attracts enemies making them one big clump to attack, invincible taunts would be too OP, making him back to noob-loved press 4 to win

the brief invisibility on teleport might be useful, but it opens enemies to finishers, and his one is nice

Wasn't trying to change his smoke bomb.  For the copies you just reuse his 4's animations.   The taunts would be a small radius and would only happen when they teleport to the next target.  They still have to be maintained via energy drain. 

 

A alternative would be aoe radiation proc to simulate confusion of the enemy. 

 

Edit: could also increase the drain cost based on how high (or low) your combo counter is.  

Edited May 1, 2017 by W01fe

[Nazrethim]

1 hour ago, W01fe said:

In a group setting ash is outshined by loki in every way. 

Ash and Loki are two very different frames. One is a skirmisher assassin ninja melee-oriented, while the other is an ultra squishy trickster frame focused on crowd control.

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In solo he has at least two really good builds.  

"Max efficiency" and "high efficiency and some duration". We can see a theme there.

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What he needs is to have something to offer a group while slightly refining his more useless abilities.  

Indeed.

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Someone had a great idea of his Shurikens extending melee combo counter.  A simple change that would give his 1 a real use when not modded without people wanting to spam it for damage. 

Technically it's function is dealing damage. Extending combo counter (or better, benefiting from it) would be a nice change.

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His teleport should cause a very brief Invisibility (1.5-3 seconds).  

Considering he teleports in a puff of smoke it could be useful, specially in Conclave where Teleport does nothing at all and it's just a 30 energy bulletjump.

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His Invisibility can honestly stay untouched.  Despite it being worse than loki's it doesn't have to be better if his other abilities have uses

Actually, if you go for team support, it's smoke screen the most likely ability to benefit from a change. What if instead of "invisibility with a stagger" it actually created a smoke cloud that made ash invisible inside it (and for a short duration) and making Smoke Shadow extend this effect to allies who pass trough the cloud?

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Change his 4 to making shadow clones (2-3) that will teleport themselves to to nearby targets similar to his original 4 except instead of them doing massive finisher damage they stun there targets and taunt enemies in a radius (they are immune to damage).  They do damage based on your combo multiplier and there damage adds to your combo multiplier while they are out.  Your not animation locked while using this ability you can move and attack normally.  It has an energy drain function.  

Couple of questions:

-How is it interactive?

-His original 4? You mean the one that was exactly the same we have now, but without marking system? Also, if they don't deal Finisher damage, that's a huge loss of damage for Ash.

-So... World on Blade Storm? DE already talked about that nearly two years ago, and it was universally agreed by savvy players and DE that it would be A) boring, B) overpowered and C) not interactive at all, just look at ember who could go to sleep with WoF active.

-How does it work in Conclave without being horrendously broken or weak to the point of useless?

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End result is his 1 and 4 allow for ways to keep your combo counter going.  2 and 3 offer defensive options when used.  4 acts as limited crowd control. This makes him more melee focused with his 4 giving you breathing room. (and letting you use guns while 4 is active without worrying about losing it) 

Keeping the combo counter going is not difficult with Drifting Contact or Body Count. 2 and 3 seem okaish but due for some work. 4 isn't supposed to be crowd control, it's supposed to be mass murder. The 4 already gives breathing room during the cinematic.

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Fun mod idea for his 1 is it increases its punch through based on your combo multiplier) 

And how does it exactly work? It seeks enemies, once it finds it's mark it jsut dissapears, unless you mean turning it into psychic bolts.

 

A rework idea can be simple of complex, but remember, the point of a rework is (in theory) to solve most (or all) the frame's issues. First identify the issues, not by comparing it to other (in this case totally different) frame, but as what you think the frame should be according to it's short description, in the case of Ash we have these two:

---

"This is Ash, lethal and elusive.

Ash can remain unseen, but his effects on the battlefield can be felt by all"

--

"Ash is great for players looking for a more stealthy approach to combat. Lethal abilities are complemented by powers of distraction. "

---

Then, contemplate carefully in which way the frame can be improved while keeping his theme (which is very important). You can run wild with new ideas (and new mechanics) or keep it simple (work with already exiting mechanics, mixing them in interesting ways).

Later, imagine how it would be the playstyle, but do so with base values. If you balance a frame around specific minmaxed stats, then the warframe will be forced into those and not work properly, which is a big issue because we have customization in the game.

Finally and this one is optional but highly recomended. Consider how it would play in Conclave (PvP). Do the abilities require massive mechanical changes to not be broken or useless? Or can they be implemented in PvP mechanically (mostly) the same with just a few stat tweaks? Remember that the frame must shine on it's own in both battlefields.

 

Edited May 1, 2017 by Nazrethim

[W01fe]

ty for taking the time.

They are indeed different frames

one has a better invisibility, and is faster along with a 4 that is nearly always useful (and when modded is always useful)  granted his decoy drops fast and the switch teleport is only useful for cheese tactics.

 

the other is slower, worse invis, a 1 that is pointless unmodded, and situational when modded.  more HP..wich at high levels means nothing as your going to be 1/2 shot anyways. a 3 that is only useful when modded and then only really useful for solo play.  and a 4 that is slow compared to any other DPS 4 in the game, clunky, high cost, and once again not team friendly.  

as for the comment about 1's function being dealing damage, thats a really shortsighted viewpoint.  If it did enough damage and scaled approrpiately youd end up with a 1 spam build, just like fatal or old bladestorm.  No you want it to provide some kind of utility to keep it useful and in your rotation.

as for the suggestion of ash's smoke...your idea just makes it a worse ivara arrow, and ruins his only ability to stay alive (stealth).  You either have stealth, a way to tank, or a way to CC.  otherwise your a frail frame who cannot scale in high end missions.

as for your questions on my 4 suggestions.

 

how is it interactive? i dont recall trying to make it so.  Rather it simply does not lock you into a cutscene, you can still play the game while using it, much like you can still play the game with ivara's bow or excal's blade.  

 

when i say the original 4 im merely suggesting that its animations are similar to the cutscene animations already for his current 4.  

 

As for it being a loss of damage, not really, his 4 is clunky and slow and you can do more damge with fatal teleport...its not a huge damage loss because most ash players dont even bother using it (outside of taking advantage of immunity frames but even that is rare)

4 hasn't been mass murder in quite a while.  Right now it kills too slowly and costs too much energy.  Im not trying to keep the image of mass murder, or a 4 that is for DPS, im changing the purpose of his 4 to be more about CC wich in turn helps your group as opposed to right now of being a mostly non existent button.

the frames issues are a lack of teamplay, and his skills being useless when unmodded and niche when modded.  right now his skills are as follows.

1-useless unmodded, you mine as well shoot a gun or melee, waste of energy, simply buffing the damage merely creates a situation where you create a spam 1 build, and that isnt good either.  with its mod its niche useful when either solo or with a group that does high level content without 4x CP.  thats it.
 

2-a less duration loki invis with a different animation, a pointless stagger (literally only use ive found is stopping grineer shield enemies, something i could just slide past and attack behind them wich is faster and able do be done more often with no energy cost.  its still invisibility though, and can last long enough to do basically whatever you want with some power duration mods.

 

3-completely useless unmodded, opening up a target to finishers is pointless when fatal teleport actually APPLIES the finisher for you at a higher damage rate especially with covertl lethality.  Any other pro is overcome by simply using parkour effectively.

4-its slow, costly, by the time you would use it you could have slaughtered the room with melee or another frame would have wiped them out with an actually effective 4 skill room clear.  

outside of the mod for smokescreen ash has nothing to really offer a group.  

This is why i want his 1 to affect his combo multiplier and maybe apply slash status that scales with his multiplier.

This is why i want teleport to offer some defensive option once used (i still think it would go largely unused however without fatal teleport)

This would allow his 4 to offer real group utility and actually give a reason for someone to take a ash instead of a loki in a group (aside from them not having loki)

I fail to see how i have not addressed your grievences, I thankyou for your time though! <3

[Nazrethim]

4 hours ago, W01fe said:

ty for taking the time.

All for the better of Ash ^_^

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one has a better invisibility, and is faster along with a 4 that is nearly always useful (and when modded is always useful)  granted his decoy drops fast and the switch teleport is only useful for cheese tactics.

Well, to be fair, since the introduction of Octavia and her Mallet, Loki's Decoy could get an EHP buff or get straight inmune to damage.

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the other is slower, worse invis, a 1 that is pointless unmodded, and situational when modded.  more HP..wich at high levels means nothing as your going to be 1/2 shot anyways. a 3 that is only useful when modded and then only really useful for solo play.  and a 4 that is slow compared to any other DPS 4 in the game, clunky, high cost, and once again not team friendly.  

I find Shuriken damage to be kind of acceptable for killing enemies as you retreat/disengage, my gripe with it is that I have no control over who hits when it's aimed to a crowd and you want to hit a specific enemy. As well as the augment being limited to hitting one or two enemies. Teleport is useful killing tool unmodded, problem is tha there are enemies who are inmune to finishers, start a stagger-defying animation when you close to the and we have Ancient Healers who render every unit in a considerable radius inmune to staggers; and the fact that object teleporting doesn't really cut it as mobility tool because objects aren't always placed where you want to go. And yes, Blade Storm got severely nerfed.

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as for the suggestion of ash's smoke...your idea just makes it a worse ivara arrow, and ruins his only ability to stay alive (stealth).  You either have stealth, a way to tank, or a way to CC.  otherwise your a frail frame who cannot scale in high end missions.

Or add, on top of the invisibility inside cloud+lingering invisibility the feature of choking enemies and opening them for Finisher attacks and the ability to either cast it on your feet or where you are aiming. Or add healing capacity to the smoke screen like someone posted in another thread. The posibilities of a smoke cloud are many.

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how is it interactive? i dont recall trying to make it so.  Rather it simply does not lock you into a cutscene, you can still play the game while using it, much like you can still play the game with ivara's bow or excal's blade.  

Those Stance Ultimate abilities are interactive because you have to use them. What you propose is World On Fire but with clones, World on Blade Storm so to speak. That's not interactive at all. You just turn it on and just let it kill for you while you can sit and do nothing.

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when i say the original 4 im merely suggesting that its animations are similar to the cutscene animations already for his current 4.  

Oh, and I thought you have been reading Ash patch notes since the game's release to see how he has changed over time.

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As for it being a loss of damage, not really, his 4 is clunky and slow and you can do more damge with fatal teleport...its not a huge damage loss because most ash players dont even bother using it (outside of taking advantage of immunity frames but even that is rare)

Indeed, Teleport and Blade Storm overlap currently, Fatal Teleport being mandatory means that a Fatal Teleport at default cost is less expensive than a single Blade Storm mark and kind of does the same thing, as you are invulnerable while doing the Finisher.

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4 hasn't been mass murder in quite a while.  Right now it kills too slowly and costs too much energy.  Im not trying to keep the image of mass murder, or a 4 that is for DPS, im changing the purpose of his 4 to be more about CC wich in turn helps your group as opposed to right now of being a mostly non existent button.

So, turn it into a utility frame? Again, we have Loki for that, and Loki would still be the better choice as Radial Disarm affecs all targets within radius while your idea of BS, due to FPS and other stuff, would probably be limited to a number of targets within a radius.

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1-useless unmodded, you mine as well shoot a gun or melee, waste of energy, simply buffing the damage merely creates a situation where you create a spam 1 build, and that isnt good either.  with its mod its niche useful when either solo or with a group that does high level content without 4x CP.  thats it.

Not really useless, just impractical and unreliable. Totally useless in Conclave yeah.

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2-a less duration loki invis with a different animation, a pointless stagger (literally only use ive found is stopping grineer shield enemies, something i could just slide past and attack behind them wich is faster and able do be done more often with no energy cost.  its still invisibility though, and can last long enough to do basically whatever you want with some power duration mods.

Indeed, and that's why SS needs to be changed to make it much better and make Duration a desirable stat (which incidentally would make max efficiency not that useful due to Fleeting Expertise reducing Duration)

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3-completely useless unmodded, opening up a target to finishers is pointless when fatal teleport actually APPLIES the finisher for you at a higher damage rate especially with covertl lethality.  Any other pro is overcome by simply using parkour effectively.

True that. Also pointless in Conclave as it doesn't do anything.

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4-its slow, costly, by the time you would use it you could have slaughtered the room with melee or another frame would have wiped them out with an actually effective 4 skill room clear.  

Da Whol Truth

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outside of the mod for smokescreen ash has nothing to really offer a group.  
 

Previous to the revisit, Ash offered mass damage to the group with the ocassional (that is: "rare as unicorn fart") Smoke Shadow and Armor stripping Shuriken. He worked well as the team's dps while other frames took care of the CC, and he was rather good at it, if extremely cheesy and non-interactive. DE nerfed that and now Ash has no niche other than Solo play. I believe he should regain his place as the team's mass killer without falling back to old BS shenanigans. Turning him into utility just makes him another Loki.

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This would allow his 4 to offer real group utility and actually give a reason for someone to take a ash instead of a loki in a group (aside from them not having loki)

I fail to see how i have not addressed your grievences, I thankyou for your time though! <3

That highlighted line implies you see Loki as the uber frame of the game, not true. "Not having Loki" shouldn't be the reason to pick Ash. Notice how I differentiated Ash from Loki on the first line of my first comment. They are very different and they should remain that way, having both cloaking spells doesn't mean they must have the same style of play or cover similar functions. While Loki uses his invi to stay safe, Ash should use his smoke bombs in a more proactive way, to help allies but mostly to F*k up the enemy.

Meditate on this subjects fellow Tenno

Edited May 1, 2017 by Nazrethim

[Birdframe_Prime]

Okay, skipping all the drama in this thread, I think I'll just reply to the original question.

On 2017-4-26 at 4:27 PM, (PS4)LastDoomKnight said:

Ok, I'm really not over how much of a dissapointment the Ash rework was. Although DE said they wanted to get rid of the bladestorm cutscenes, they didnt? Like, why? Bladestorm really should be an exalted weapon or just a more interactive power that synergies with his other abilities (lots of great ideas on ash revisited thread). Why can't DE give him a rework that is solid, balanced, and most of all engaging and fun for ash? They've done it before with other frames, and in time I hope they look at him again.

As far as I understood the change, friend, I'm fairly sure that DE wanted to get rid of the cutscenes and simply couldn't because of player division. What I gathered from the discussions they had on the Devstreams, though, was that they wanted to get rid of the 'stand in one spot out of danger, press 4 to kill things whenever an enemy appeared, get returned to that same point of safety' method that it had before ethic the ability had before.

So many people liked that form of Ash that, for DE, it was impossible to completely rework it into something different, but they absolutely had to change it because it went against their philosophy of getting players to use all abilities on a frame and getting all frames to be at least actively playable and not based on standing in a corner. Much like the Nekros rework, where they wanted to get him out of his corner, continuously pressing 3, they wanted Ash out of the corner pressing 4.

Because of community division and issues of truly making it blow-everything-away OP there were simply a lot of things they couldn't do. So many players went nuts at the thought of making it an exalted ability, while others begged for it to happen. True OP P4TW would have been achieved if Ash sent out only clones and was free to run around tagging new enemies or attacking while it was happening. And many other examples.

In other words they made the tagging line-of-sight, forcing players to go look at their enemies, and to balance the disappointment of all those players, made it capable of multi-tagging and capable of tagging everything in the room if they had enough energy. They couldn't please all parties, so they opted for making the best out of the pile of crap the community lumped them with.

From what I remember of the forums, the game and DE's discussions at the time, it was just a nightmare. On the positive side, you could consider this change an interim if you'd like, where they give the playerbase a year to settle into the idea of an Ash that doesn't just nuke enemies into the ground with a single button, and then they'll look at it again.

[W01fe]

I don't feel the need to arbitrarily limit design space on a frame simply for to a perceived notion of how the frame is supposed to be played. 

 

Imo every frame should be able to provide some utility to the group that is more than just killing. 

 

Plus I don't really see a stance 4 for him that would be better than just using Invisibility and going into melee. 

My suggestion isn't exactly world on fire as is not designed to kill everyone outright.  

One thought could be bladed armor bladed soul.  His frame sprouts blades all over his body and all his attacks apply slash procs at 100% status chance.  

 

As for smoke providing more group synergy.  Make it throwable.  Make duration effect how long the smoke bomb lasts. Make default Invisibility from walking through it last 16 seconds.  Allow teammates to gain the benefit.   And let it target enemies automatically like Shurikens.  Give it a mod that makes it Target friendlies maybe.  I'm still not sure if this would be a great use.   Turn the stagger into a knockdown since it's a smoke bomb now maybe. 

[Nazrethim]

5 hours ago, Thaylien said:

As far as I understood the change, friend, I'm fairly sure that DE wanted to get rid of the cutscenes and simply couldn't because of player division. What I gathered from the discussions they had on the Devstreams, though, was that they wanted to get rid of the 'stand in one spot out of danger, press 4 to kill things whenever an enemy appeared, get returned to that same point of safety' method that it had before ethic the ability had before.

So many people liked that form of Ash that, for DE, it was impossible to completely rework it into something different, but they absolutely had to change it because it went against their philosophy of getting players to use all abilities on a frame and getting all frames to be at least actively playable and not based on standing in a corner. Much like the Nekros rework, where they wanted to get him out of his corner, continuously pressing 3, they wanted Ash out of the corner pressing 4.

Which is nice and all but...

5 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Because of community division and issues of truly making it blow-everything-away OP there were simply a lot of things they couldn't do. So many players went nuts at the thought of making it an exalted ability, while others begged for it to happen. True OP P4TW would have been achieved if Ash sent out only clones and was free to run around tagging new enemies or attacking while it was happening. And many other examples.

Those who didn't want an "exalted ability" was because either A) they wanted BS to remain a P4TW nuke or B) didn't want Ash to become a E/Slide spam macro like Excalibur's Exalted Blade (hence "exalted ability" and why I word it as "Stance Ability", there's a difference there) not realising the full potential of a Stance Ultimate focused in combos rather than E/Slide spam (which would make it actually interactive, unlike what we have now, what was BS and BS nuke suggestions) combined with triggers to make it just as destructive as old BS was, shockingly, most players don't really know much about game development or what a "trigger" is.

5 hours ago, Thaylien said:

In other words they made the tagging line-of-sight, forcing players to go look at their enemies, and to balance the disappointment of all those players, made it capable of multi-tagging and capable of tagging everything in the room if they had enough energy. They couldn't please all parties, so they opted for making the best out of the pile of crap the community lumped them with.

Except they forgot to keep the relative Cost per Enemy ratio of old BS which made it actually sustainable without enforcing max efficiency, increasing the basic CoE by 200% (or 600% if you account for all 3 marks). They seemingly went with one of the first ideas proposed: a tag system, which was pointed out in the very same thread that it was terrible unless the cost per mark was next to nothing due to how many enemies we face in combat.

5 hours ago, Thaylien said:

From what I remember of the forums, the game and DE's discussions at the time, it was just a nightmare. On the positive side, you could consider this change an interim if you'd like, where they give the playerbase a year to settle into the idea of an Ash that doesn't just nuke enemies into the ground with a single button, and then they'll look at it again.

Indeed, it's not the first time Ash gets changed (though previous changes weren't just straight nerfs and actually aimed to solving the frame's issues at the time). I seriously hope they eventually give him a proper rework to adress all the problems with the frame while pleasing most of the playerbase with a highly interactive, synergic and less Efficiency dependant playstyle. My hopes are for when they go back to do trailers for old primes, as they would have to make a trailer for Ash and "spin the camera like you are having a seizure to apply dots while leaving you dry" or "teleporting inside a rampart or reactor" don't really make for a good trailer. There's also the fact they haven't updated his profile video which gives even more hope they will do the right thing.