Ash Revisited Feedback Megathread

[MokutoBunshi]

I am about to try it and see if this is different from what I think it will be like...

 

]\'[

[Dimzor]

I immediately ran to simulacrum with zenurik maxed energy regen, 229% power str, 145% power range, 135% power eff and 100% dur. Sure new bladestorm is more interactive and different but:

1) Not viable in 4man squads with lots of enemies because there is no time and Ash is no tank to mark around targets.

2)You struggled in the past to fix the animation time and now you ruined it again.. There are no clones to help as of now, making 10marks really really long animation..

3)Damage increase sure is nice, if the animation was shorter then could actually consider it if not a nurf, same output as an ability just different.

4) Compared to old Bladestorm, you actually need visual contact, making it hard on a lot of tilesets due to objects (small or big) interefering or enemies on different height (Stairs or mini-floors)

In the end, despite using exactly same build as before, after testing a while and getting the hang of it, you really need to use it in conjuction with smoke bomb, which has low duration even if boosted with mods (actually tried with 280%dur). Compared to loki's Invisibility smoke bomb is lower duration and now its almost a "must" to use it to mark targets both for energy efficiency and survivability. Making Bladestorm kinda get boosted by smoke bomb was nice, but the result after this rework is that bladestorm just got nurfed. Harder to use both in solo and public, higher dmg but more energy consumptive, less survivability, animation time needs fixing (like "if marks less than 5, no clone, if marks 5-10, 2clones and so on up to 4clones" perhaps something like that..) or perhaps make bladestorm spawn clones that attack the targets instead of Ash himself. Hope my post actually helps.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Dimzor

[Aeraxis]

I'm not much of a fan of Bladestorm (New and Old), it feels even more clunky now that you have to mark targets for the same animations, for the same length of time if not longer than before, while attacking less targets. I was hoping for something with likeness to Valkyr's augment 'Hysterical Assault', but with teleports between targets utilizing finisher damage. Instead of marking multiple enemies multiple times, just pressing 4 would execute/assassinate a target, and making it like many abilities adding in consecutive casts lowering the cost or increasing damage dealt. Also making it deal 3x damage to bleeding enemies would also make a good synergy with his Shuriken. Also refunding small amounts of energy for killing enemies with Bladestorm while smoke screen is active would make his whole kit work and flow better.

Edit:  After playing it for about 4 hours now, I do like this version of Blade Storm better than the old one. It is still very animation/cut-scene heavy, which is the biggest problem I have with the ability, you lose control for far too long. The nice part though is you are able to quickly mark and assassinate enemies one at a time, reliably (Fatal Teleport I'm looking at you). I love the changes to Smoke Bomb its been needing that tweak for a very long time. Teleport doesn't work on everything with a health bar (possible bug?). I still would rather the ability require more interaction, to combo your strikes with Bladestorm, without cut-scene-like animations that you have to wait to end til you can gain control again.

Edited November 27, 2016 by Aeraxis
Longer play time, and my thoughts

[Blightshadow]

I REALLY dislike the bladestorm rework for two reasons:

1) The community asked for the ability to be more interactive but all that was done was adding another "stage" before the original ability. While the animation is faster (which is good) you still basically need to wait for the ability to finish before you can do anything again (same as before).

2) In order to mark a group of enemies multiple times you need to swipe back and forth with your mouse over them, and of course you want to do it as quickly as possible (because they are not nice enough to stop shooting at you until you are done marking everyone 3 times). This causes fast and repeating swipes of the mouse which caused me dizziness and I am not usually prone to motion sickness so I figure that players that are will have a bad time. Spazzing your mouse constantly is not fun.

[Celetille]

Blade storm still deals finisher damage. My listed damage was 6,752 and I hit a level 140 Corrupted Bombard for 6740. The problem people have with the re-work is that they complain they get blasted before they can execute the ability. THAT'S WHAT THE SMOKESCREEN CHANGES ARE FOR. Cast while moving and in the air, reduced cost. Mod for a usable duration. 

You probably still do the same amount of damage. I killed that 140 bombard with 3 marks. You just have to wait for the bleed proc to finish it off. The people complaining that he does less damage now probably didn't realize due to the excessively long casting animation that the bleed procs were actually killing the enemies for them. They were invincible and unable to see how the initial strikes didn't out-right kill the enemies, but did a chunk and let the slash procs do the rest. Now it's very noticeable how much the slash procs do, and it's cool.

I really do love the changes that focus on invisibility and assassination and I used to never play Ash due to the ez-mode playstyle; but now, I'll definitely use him more. 

Edit: My build:

Steel Charge | Coaction Drift
Primed Continuity, Fleeting Expertise (Max), Streamline, Narrow Minded (7), Blind Rage (8), Intensify, Stretch, Vitality


Possible BUG: Steel Charge no longer affects damage on Bladestorm
BUG:Equipping coaction drift did not increase the damage of my Blade Storm.

Suggestion: Increase base duration of Smoke Screen to 10 seconds.

Edited November 26, 2016 by Celetille

[Bardockdragon]

Why not give the ability of instant kill while using Smokescreen or 3xdamage on melee while in stealth? It could cost energy and reduce  10% damage for each kill or something like that. 90% damage reduction by enemies or does ash's BS lose attack power? If so then you lose damage every time and after 9 clones you don't do any dmg...... 

 

[Azur_Fenix]

3 hours ago, LegionCynex said:

What where you even doing to get killed while cloaked?, where you deliberately thinking you can just walk into a swam of mobs like its nothing and start killing?, you have to pick what target is the most threat, Yeah, we can't kill huge level mobs anymore with "Press 4 to win". Big deal.

The Rework is fine, it stops Ash Players, from pressing 4 to win (Now what if I told you, Ash shuold lose his god-mode, WHILE blade-stromin hum?)

 

I would be perma banned if I told you what I though of this idea and of you for suggesting it. So I wont and keep it to myself.

[Weirdiolio]

If the energy cost was reduced to 5 per mark, the ability may still be worth using. As it stands, though, its effectively useless.

[MS6lunchbox]

This makes me sad. I have yet to play Ash after his re-work, but after reading what had been changed and the posts here I'm feeling a bit bummed out. If the main complaint was the inability to control him during BS, then DE has completely missed the mark. Why not let his clones go through their animation and you control the real Ash? Maybe the real Ash would be able to fling from wall to wall, latching, and then tossing his shurikens at enemies while the clones do their thing?

I can think of plenty of other ways of changing this to give the user control while not killing the abilities usefulness.   

Looks like I need to choose a new main. 

[Alpha_Zerg]

The new marking system sucks. It's horrible to play with, you can't mark targets quickly enough, you can forget that it's on, it forces enemies to have been in line of sight before you can kill them, and, at the end of it all... You still end up sitting back for a few seconds while your warframe kills off the enemies.

 

A great way to improve the ability would have been to keep Bladestorm the way it was, but add another clone in place of the warframe. Instead, you allow the actor to run around and use other abilities while the clones go through their business without the player experiencing the cutscene. You could also add synergy with Smokescreen to improve damage dealt by the clones, and nerf the base clone damage to compensate for the player being able to attack as well.

 

Instead, add the marking system to Shuriken, and add more shurikens, allowing you to mark multiple targets and nail them to walls selectively. Teleport is okay as-is.

I know that in the grand sceme of things this will likely go ignored, as I can't remember the Devs ever going back on an ability change, but this would really solve most of the problems that I have seen other people talking about, while keeping that which made Ash fun to play with for other players.

 

So, please, DE. Consider this and don't just stick to your guns.

 

In fact, go the way of Saryn! Enemies inside of smokescreen or hit by a shuriken can take more damage, as well as enemies with a bleed proc already on them, while other enemies take much lower damage.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Alpha_Zerg

[Azur_Fenix]

3 hours ago, -CM-Kinnison said:

Old ash blade storm.  100 energy for 18 attacks.  Instant "press 4 and attack"

new ash 15/10 energy for each attack, and you have to mark them.  yes you get it refunded, but while you are busy trying to mark things your teamates are killing them off. I see no reason anymore to use bladestorm in groups.

in the prime time, it was said the Damage would increase, but it is the same.  2k damage before and 2k damage now.

Fatal Teleport would be better now to use unless you are playing solo.

To bad they broke it again and it isn't working anymore, least not for me.

[TheSteelRat]

why do we still go through the bladestorm animation?  Now you just removed the auto targeting and increased the energy cost, and a lame attempt at smoke shadow synergy without increasing the duration of smoke screen

[Isochronic]

21 minutes ago, LegionCynex said:

What where you even doing to get killed while cloaked?, where you deliberately thinking you can just walk into a swam of mobs like its nothing and start killing?, you have to pick what target is the most threat, Yeah, we can't kill huge level mobs anymore with "Press 4 to win". Big deal.

 

 

I was... you know... trying to mark them and suddenly losing my stealth because Ash's cloak is short as hell?.. And I don't have 300% power build, never had. I have 100% duration and any future increase will end up in literally no damage in BS, with it losing every thin possibility to use it now (as if it is actually usable now without being solo and being ok with motion sickness...).

Also, I can press 1 and 3 and left mouse button with Mirage. And it's like 2 secs slower than old BS. And hell of seconds faster then a new one. Why bother?

Edited November 25, 2016 by A.Rosen

[Rydian]

- Blade Storm
It's way easier to mark targets than I thought it would be from hearing the changes (you don't need line of sight, you can target across obstructions), and it brings the spam down a notch, while still keeping how strong it is once purposely used.

However it doesn't actually get rid of the major issue of being "stuck" in it while it executes, and it's very easy to have your stealth chain broken if another enemy wanders in while you're busy shanking... because you're stuck, visible, unable to do anything while they go hit the alarm  In fact, since the shanking happens over time, enemies in the marked group that aren't stabbed first will become alerted, so they break your stealth chain when they get stabbed!

These things still need to be addressed, especially if this is supposed to be a stealth-capable ability now.

- Teleport
Object teleportation would be nicer, if objects weren't rare and/or awkward.  This has very few places in which you can use it, especially in Grineer tilesets, so I don't see it having much of a use.

- Smoke Screen
Much easier to use now, but still way too short of a duration (modding is percentage so it gets less from mods than others), it's more of an escape ability than offensive stealth.

[Tizodd]

Just tried it a bit in the simulacrum and I like it.  With Fatal Teleport and a balanced build, Ash plays much more like a ninja with active gameplay.

My only issue is not knowing how many times I've tagged a target... I don't have the little icons above the head shown in yesterday's stream.

[MrM1]

The ability was too overpowered. If you suggest to add another clone to attack the marked targets while you can walk around and do other things, it would be even more overpowered.

 

I have that feeling that 90% of the Warframe community can't live without powercreep...

[Pendragon1951]

I just tested it and these are my suggestions and questions, my suggestion is once you mark a target instead of having to press 4 again why not while in that mode you press your fire button and once you come out of target mode it reverts back to normal, if you have to have it this way then lets make it as easy as you can on the player. My question is why only three targets, in the old mode it was, I believe if memory serves, at least 8 targets why can't we do at least this many?

[Pyus]

I do not like having it wiggle my recticle across my screen to target multiple targets. If we could have an enhanced targeting recticle like Mesa's that would help. 

[-Doctor_Lek_Ti_Ruk-]

Fun to play with for other players? I didn't know that pressing 4 can be THAT fun...

[Circle_of_Psi]

1 minute ago, MrM1 said:

The ability was too overpowered. If you suggest to add another clone to attack the marked targets while you can walk around and do other things, it would be even more overpowered.

 

I have that feeling that 90% of the Warframe community can't live without powercreep...

This. I'm an Ash Main and I LOVE his rework!

[Epicagemo]

Problems I noticed in Patch 19.1:
Bladestorm cast time severely increased.
-being restricted to three attacks that take time to build the marks, DPS takes a massive big hit
-Survivability reduced. After the animation, the enemies are already honed in on your skeleton (enemy AI upgraded). This problem is like the old problem of teleport where you teleported to an enemy just to get melee'd by the enemy.
Arcane Trickery doesn't proc from bladestorm?!?
Enemy AI regains aimbotmode and increased awareness.
-because of that and spawn issues, stealth exp and the general experience takes a hit. I melee an enemy 5m away, and he was looking away, and suddenly 180s, noticing that his friend is dead.

Positive aspects (for mechanics) out of this patch:
LOS restriction to Bladestorm is a good balance.
Smokescreen is given some freedom, I'm neutral about this because it is a good change, but in my mind, it was supposed to be different from loki's invisibility. Now it has one less property of unique.
Teleport got buffed in a weird way.
Stealth is being worked on.

I think "hold 4" to mark and "release 4" for cast is a much better option for his ability because it massively reduces cast time and retains the interactivity of the ability while being being balanced by LOS and power range.

[Celetille]

5 minutes ago, MS6lunchbox said:

This makes me sad. I have yet to play Ash after his re-work, but after reading what had been changed and the posts here I'm feeling a bit bummed out. If the main complaint was the inability to control him during BS, then DE has completely missed the mark. Why not let his clones go through their animation and you control the real Ash? Maybe the real Ash would be able to fling from wall to wall, latching, and then tossing his shurikens at enemies while the clones do their thing?

I can think of plenty of other ways of changing this to give the user control while not killing the abilities usefulness.

Looks like I need to choose a new main.

Well, if you actually played the re-worked ash instead of talking based on what you think the notes meant, you would know that Ash always strikes the enemy for the first mark, and the clones follow up with up to two attacks where you're free to do other things.

[chofranc]

I'm not an ash fan, but with the rework is feel cool than before, since now you don't need to press 4 to kill everything in sight, is feel more tactical. Lol, your suggestion it would make the old ulti more op and broken.

BTW, the ulti still can one shoot bombard of lvl140, i already tested it using transient fortitude+intensify.

Edited November 25, 2016 by chofranc

[Aekhon]

Okay, so two things:

1. The marking mechanic means that Ash no longer has a panic button.  Bladestorm cannot be used instantly anymore, and that was Ash's only panic button.  However, I do like the fact that we can now use Bladestorm tactically.

2. I don't seem to be able to mark anything more than twice.  The third mark never happens.  Are marks limited when enemies will be insta-killed?

[Circle_of_Psi]

7 minutes ago, Azur_Fenix said:

I would be perma banned if I told you what I though of this idea and of you for suggesting it. So I wont and keep it to myself.

I didn't want to make you feel unconformable in any way Azur, Ofc I don't want it to be removed, I smipley pointed out that, to the other person, he shuold not be so worried about the "Nerf", to Press 4 to win