Ash Revisited Feedback Megathread

[motorfirebox]

Hell yes.

[UncaIroh]

Too many pages to wade through and most have probably been discussed to death.

Good job on the Koga Skin, it looks awesome.

So, I played with the min-maxed ash (175 eff, almost no dur, 200 str). The energy cost was still manageable so it's not a problem. At first I played it with BS in mind, so I pressed 4 for marking mode, swiped, and let it loose. It felt slow and inefficient. I was getting shot at while trying to tag all of these enemies. On the upside, it looks like I was still killing things as usual.

Initial impression: BS still hits hard, but the new mechanic really slowed it down. 

Then I figured out that the marking mode doesn't prevent you from playing as normal, so I ran around killing things with my weapons and other powers while marking all the while. Since energy is refunded when marked targets die from other sources of damage, it's not a big issue.

But, this style of play left me unable to use Bladestorm as often. For the simple reason that if I'm killing things with all my other powers, most of time I just kill mobs under my reticule anyway. Bladestorm became a situational "oh S#&$" button where I run out of ammo, swipe my mouse to get a few more marks, bladestorm, then reload while everything around me is dead. Typical target count with this style of play: 4-6 mobs.

So while the BS change is a welcome thing, I think it slowed down bladestorm a bit too much. I'd like to suggest placing an additional mechanic to placing marks to speed it up just a little, and maybe add some synergy to his powers/passives.

Suggestions:

1) Shuriken also marks enemies. Enemies marked this way do not use additional energy but also do not refund any if they die. Multiple hits will add more marks. Since 1 mark = 15 energy, that means a shuriken will cost you 12.5 at 100% efficiency which also gives some savings. 

2) Any enemy with an active bleed proc within x meters automatically gets marked. (Ash smells blood in the water like a shark) My only misgiving is that it might lock ash players to use only Telos Boltace.

So this marking mechanic is fine for me, but it needs some acceleration.

On the animation length: Just make all enemies get hit by an ash ghost? Might kill the framerates of a few players though...

 

[Arkvold]

Playing on it for a while, I've come to the realization that there's just two things wrong with Bladestorm right now, as far as I'm concerned.

Knowing whether or not you're in "Marking Mode" - you could fix this by tinting the screen, kinda like what happens when Limbo is in the Rift, or when the Operator is in Void Mode.  Maybe dull outside sounds to indicate Ash is focusing on his targets, like what happens with Loki's Invisibility.  The extra feedback would make marking mode more obvious as well as lending a visceral, predatory feel towards the marking process that, at least to me, would be satisfying.  It would feel less like an arbitrary game mechanic, and more like Ash narrowing his eyes and picking out his prey.

Allowing you to remain in control of Ash during the attack - while it's cool that Ash goes invulnerable and zips around from victim to victim stabbing them, it's not really necessary and it takes Ash 'out of the fight' for an extended period of time, especially if you marked a lot of durable enemies.  If your goal is to improve interactivity, allowing Ash to continue fighting as Bladestorm progresses (handled by ninja-clones) would be a good way to do it.  It would also improve synergy with Smokescreen, since you no longer waste Smokescreen's duration while Bladestorm progresses.

[JohnnyQuantum]

After reading of the changes, especially Bladestorm, I wasn't initially looking forward to them. But after finally getting around to trying Ash out, I think the changes are OK. So +1, and +1 for the new deluxe skin as well! I think Bladestorm synergises well with Smoke screen, and provides a good balance for group play, Ash and Bladestorm are still powerful, but won't take all the squad's kills.

[Disaeo]

I don't wanna be repetitive but I'm not really into reading 46 pages of comments in this thread so I apologize if somebody already said what I'm about to say.

So, I see what DE was trying to do with ash, they want to make him a really mobile and fast frame, as you can see from the smoke screen tweak, the teleport buff (not that useful but gives the idea of mobility and ninja stuff) and the bladestorm marking, as you have to move around. I'm of the same idea, what I really can't understand was why still having to watch the bladestorm animation. It breaks the flow of ash's gameplay and what's worse is that you almost got the solution: making ash's clones do all the animations for him, cos right now they do trigger only after the first mark. You might say "it hurts his survivability", dang if you gain mobility at the same time you gain survivability, an would reflect the fast skills of ash.

[(PSN)ATreidezz]

Some people complain about there are less target they can attack wit current rework & that its too slow.

Maybe if BS targeting changed so that targeting one enemy will also includes up to 4 enemies within the radius of the initial target (auto-marked), targets that got auto-marked will be attacked by clones, initial target will only be attacked by real ash. Each enemy can only be marked once.

There are 2 ways of activating BS , tap once = 1 attack each mark, Hold button = multiple attacks each mark, up to 2 times.

Say there is a tight group of 20 enemies, you only need to mark 4 enemies, no need to mark them all 1 by 1, no need to run your reticule multiple times across 1 enemy to multi-mark them. When attacking with BS, all enemies received the same amount of attacks, all depends whether you hold the button or tap when releasing the skill. That also means you can kill 20 enemies with 4 BS animations (by tapping) or 8 (by holding)

ofc energy consumption must be adjusted, as well as buffing power strength for each attack, bcos max attack is 2 per enemy.

Edited November 30, 2016 by (PS4)ATreidezz

[(PSN)ATreidezz]

51 minutes ago, Tetroner said:

I'm of the same idea, what I really can't understand was why still having to watch the bladestorm animation. It breaks the flow of ash's gameplay and what's worse is that you almost got the solution: making ash's clones do all the animations for him

You cant take away BS animation....why? Its the only time we see ash using his signature weapons: hidden blades, having only the clones doing it isnt the same, how else would you see him using hidden blades?what skill?

I have heard other suggestion such as moving BS animation for FT (Fatal Teleport) & im against it, why? FT is an AUGMENT, not everyone using ash will have this aug, nor they want to use it over other mods & some would prefer to see normal melee finisher instead. That means without this aug, you will never see ash signature weapon in use. So making it only available to FT or teleport is out of question

So there you have it, hidden blades & BS animation is inseparable to ash...for now. Until you can come up with another ult that utilize this unique weapon, you cant take away the animation.

Edited November 30, 2016 by (PS4)ATreidezz

[Gendarme]

So this is an attempt to streamline the way Ash functions as a frame and give him clear cut abilities. And then present the player with options for different play styles through auguments, which is the main purpose of this post, a discussion about auguments and their function in Warframe.

The way I see it is as an oportunity to give frames options for modifying their style of play. Providing the player with ways of modifying the way their abilities work, instead of being straight up upgrades. In my view auguments should come with benefits as well as drawbacks so that they arent a straight up must haves, but simply modifications.

Now, for this to work well, auguments should probably have separate slot per ability and come with no energy cost. Implementing a system with benefits+drawbacks and then applying them to the way current modding works would work against the whole concept. Players would simply slot in mods that straight up benefit them, instead of crippling their warframes by wasting slots and energy on auguments that come with hefty limitations.

Without further ado, on to the concept:

 

---

Shuriken

Hurls a shuriken which deals high damage and applies a strong slash proc to a single target.

Auguments

Power Throw 

Removes enemy armor and deals high damage to a single target. No longer applies a slash proc.

Shatter Razor

Deals medium damage and applies a medium slash proc to a single target and all enemies in a small area (think Volt's shock targeting)

---

 

Smoke Screen

Ash releases a smoke cloud that permeates the area, allies inside the cloud are invisible, enemies are blinded. Capped at X clouds (casting works like Frost's snowglobe) 

Auguments

Razor Wind

Enemies within the cloud now have a weak slash proc applied to them, but are no longer blinded.

Choking Gas

Enemies within the cloud choke (read:stunned, robotics have their circuits screwed because of magic dust or something, for the sake of consistency) but allies are no longer made invisible.

---

 

Teleport Shadow Step

Ash dissapears in a flash of smoke and reappears at the targetted location

Auguments

Deadly Intent

Ash can only teleport to  enemies anything with a hp bar, but if it's an enemy he will do a finishing move automatically.

Ash Trails

Ash can only teleport to smoke clouds, but he can now spawn smaller smoke clouds whenever he kills an enemy. Capped at Y clouds (different counter from the big original ones, function of the cloud changed by the original ability auguments)

---

 

Bladestorm

In a twirl  In a move of incomprehensible badassery Ash hurls Z shuriken at each enemy in a fairly wide area around him (Z = amount of shuriken hurled at each enemy, shuriken are modified by the augument on his first ability)

Auguments

Concentrated Power

Ash now hurls shuriken only in a cone in front of him, but the number of shuriken hurled at each enemy is greatly increased.

Brostorm

Instead of hurling shuriken, Ash releases fragments of himself (read:shadow clones) that slash each enemy in an area around Ash with their spectral katanas dealing heavy damage (damage increased by combo counter)

---

 

Passive

Each slash proc(slash proc damage tick?) increases melee combo counter by 1

Each slash proc gives 0.25(0.1/0.5/1?) energy to Ash (op?, unnecessary?)

Edited November 30, 2016 by Gendarme

[TopSpeed]

yes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tengu_Bruxo]

1 hour ago, (PS4)ATreidezz said:

You cant take away BS animation....why? Its the only time we see ash using his signature weapons: hidden blades, having only the clones doing it isnt the same, how else would you see him using hidden blades?what skill?

I have heard other suggestion such as moving BS animation for FT (Fatal Teleport) & im against it, why? FT is an AUGMENT, not everyone using ash will have this aug, nor they want to use it over other mods & some would prefer to see normal melee finisher instead. That means without this aug, you will never see ash signature weapon in use. So making it only available to FT or teleport is out of question

So there you have it, hidden blades & BS animation is inseparable to ash...for now. Until you can come up with another ult that utilize this unique weapon, you cant take away the animation.

Well, to be honest, Ash has had this animation over 4 years now..(of which i've spent 41% of my time playing Warframe with Ash) of which only 2.75 years have had the "hidden blade" the reason for this was due to each individual weapon animation had to be added to his bladestrom which caused large hiccups, and server lag. (I.E. whatever melee weapon Ash held, that finisher animation had to be used).  I remember as well as many others out there, when you would get stuck in the air after BS, unable to finish the mission? good stuff right?

so in order to solve that problem they added a singular animation string with a "hidden blade" to help. So I have to disagree with you there, personally I've seen this animation for 4 years now, I've seen all the headaches, problems with game flow, as well as removing player activity, or down right trolling.

I'm of the opinion that this animation should be removed, allow the clones to do all the work, which free up Ash to continue to free flow around the map, helping team mates, reviving frames, and finishing objectives. being more of a team player, instead of "look how cool I'm! it took me a total of 12 seconds to eliminate 8 target, sweet right?"

[UrielColtan]

14 hours ago, (PS4)ATreidezz said:

You cant take away BS animation....why? Its the only time we see ash using his signature weapons: hidden blades, having only the clones doing it isnt the same, how else would you see him using hidden blades?what skill?

I have heard other suggestion such as moving BS animation for FT (Fatal Teleport) & im against it, why? FT is an AUGMENT, not everyone using ash will have this aug, nor they want to use it over other mods & some would prefer to see normal melee finisher instead. That means without this aug, you will never see ash signature weapon in use. So making it only available to FT or teleport is out of question

So there you have it, hidden blades & BS animation is inseparable to ash...for now. Until you can come up with another ult that utilize this unique weapon, you cant take away the animation.

Not a very convincing reason to keep pace killing cutscenes. Just incorporate those blades into a revamped 4th ability, without these cutscenes, just as Excalibur's Exalted Blade, Valkyr's Hysteria claws or Wukong's Primal Fury Staff, require no cutscenes.

Edited November 30, 2016 by UrielColtan

[Dragazer]

16 minutes ago, Tengu_Bruxo said:

Well, to be honest, Ash has had this animation over 4 years now..(of which i've spent 41% of my time playing Warframe with Ash) of which only 2.75 years have had the "hidden blade" the reason for this was due to each individual weapon animation had to be added to his bladestrom which caused large hiccups, and server lag. (I.E. whatever melee weapon Ash held, that finisher animation had to be used).  I remember as well as many others out there, when you would get stuck in the air after BS, unable to finish the mission? good stuff right?

so in order to solve that problem they added a singular animation string with a "hidden blade" to help. So I have to disagree with you there, personally I've seen this animation for 4 years now, I've seen all the headaches, problems with game flow, as well as removing player activity, or down right trolling.

I'm of the opinion that this animation should be removed, allow the clones to do all the work, which free up Ash to continue to free flow around the map, helping team mates, reviving frames, and finishing objectives. being more of a team player, instead of "look how cool I'm! it took me a total of 12 seconds to eliminate 8 target, sweet right?"

I think a good compromise would be to keep the animation as is, but give an option to exit and let the clones do the work when 4 is pressed again leaving you free to target again.

So it will be tap 4 to target, tap 4 again to attack, and tap 4 again to exit the animation if you choose.

but yeah i would prefer a new ability with no cut-scenes tbh

Edited November 30, 2016 by Dragazer

[minidelight]

So after some time trying out the new "reworked BS" , i feel like it needs alot of tweaks to be a good 4. atm its faster to kill enemies with guns than to press 4, even in when playing against lv100+.

1. The marking of targets is  slow, and its awful in close spaces/tilesets,  its ridiculous that we need to move the mouse like we are having seisures to do any proper enemy marking.

2.just remove the cinematic experience, ffs decouple ash from it and let the clones do the job,  let us shoot, move jump...whatever. I dont get why in a fast paced shooter we have a power that takes all control from us and we just stand there watching enemies beeing ganked one by one without any input from the player.

 

IMHO this rework is mediocre

Edited November 30, 2016 by minidelight

[UrielColtan]

I don't want to be put into a pace killing animation under any circumstance to be honest, being able to cancel the move early is not good enough, there is still the rhythm killing and worthlesness unless you give-in to a cutscene playing the game for you whenever you want to use his fourth. I also do not want clones to do all the work, I think his clones should simply be supplementary to abilities Ash obtains in his 4th state. Shadows of the Undead or Rumblers are not the direction I want for Ash.

Edited November 30, 2016 by UrielColtan

[CTanGod]

13 hours ago, HazaRD-WARRIOR said:

No, this was not the goal Ash was designed with. He was designed as a melee stealth frame with good melee damage. Extra durability makes him better for this, as he has to be up close and personal. Gets around fast. Has escape/relocate tactics, closes in on his enemy, and extra bleeding damages. Frames that are designed with the goal of dishing out damage are more squishy. Ash was never in that category to begin with, ever, from as far back as the first release. Others outdid him in damage. He is meant to give a balance of stealth offence, melee, and damage. This means he uses all the tools, and an all around warframe, not one that needs to excel at one thing or the other. Making him in the end, in fact, much more useful in this manner.

If he was designed as a melee frame then why the hell does he have 3 abilities that specifically do damage while not helping him in melee at all and why does he have only 1 melee damage augmenting ability? Also he DOES NOT have all the tools, he doesn't even have 1 good CC move (a stagger on smoke screen isn't helping anyone). If you want a frame that was designed for a balance between melee and damage look at Excalibur before his reworks not at Ash.

[UrielColtan]

On 11/29/2016 at 2:32 AM, arm4geddon-117 said:

Since duration smoke screen is now a more solid reality than it ever was, to make it stand out and be something different than just a lower duration invis compared to loki, the smoke augment should be changed, it should make nearby allies invisible by default, and the augment add something else, or some kind of interaction with bs or whatever else...perhaps give an insta all round 1st mark so if u wanna mark everything 3x you do it faster or i dunno, think of something i'm not being too creative at the moment lol.

Agreed on Smoke Screen augment, there is no good reason why Ivara can make allies invisible by default, and for even longer, while Ash can't. Makes no sense these days.

[Ryunokage]

Been playing around with the ash since the rework and i quite enjoy the new theme of mobility that defines his new playstyle.

Triggering smoke screen on the move, or in mid air adds alot of utility to the ability, not just as a means of hiding yourself but also staggering any near by enemies.

The new teleport changes that allow you to teleport not only to enemies, but also environmental objects is a welcome one, especially when moving around in stealth.

With regard to bladestorm though, i do feel somewhat divided about it. On one hand, it functions marvellously in a stealth run when you find yourself in a room with multiple enemies whom you need to take out in short order, I find myself using it like the "mark and execute" function in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist. On the other hand marking enemies in the midst of a heated fight remains somewhat awkward. My complaints with it are :

1. Marked enemies aren't sufficiently prominent in the UI, making it hard to tell who has and hasn't been marked in a chaotic fight. Changing energy colours is an option, but compromises aesthetics. 

2. Accurately marking enemies, especially higher threat targets whom you want to stack marks on, is difficult when they're located in a crowd, in context of ash's limited power reserve.

3. Pausing to survey the situation and begin marking isn't easy when on the move and mobile. It might just be me, but i find that using blade storm interrupts the flow of mobility that the ash otherwise enjoys.

4. Executing bladestorm in a combat situation still renders me unable to interact or take an active hand whilst the animations are being played out. It leaves me in the position of a spectator, which in a hectic fight is a jarring change of pace.

As it stands, bladestorm seems to be of greater usefulness in stealth situations rather then combat. As a solution, i would suggest that:

A: Blade storm be given a 2nd mode for combat situations, whilst the 1st mode be maintained for stealth situations. Perhaps using invisibility as a means of switching between them. While visible ash would be in combat mode should 4 be toggled, and while invisibile he would have bladestorm's current functionality.

B: where during active combat, the Ash's hidden blades are deployed as a toggle mode like the valkyr or excalibur, any enemy struck by the ash during this period of time would be struck in turn by a clone.

This would enable ash to retain and even play to the theme of mobility, while in active combat, without leaving players in the role of a spectator at all. While at the same time retaining blade storm's current functionality for stealth runs.

[Nazrethim]

Also add a 'hold' feature to teleport:

-Tap: Teleport to target unit, as usual

-Hold: Teleport to aimed location

[Enno69]

7 hours ago, Iceyspy said:

I second that.

 

Also, maybe allow teleportation to pickups & terminals? 

I believe you can now teleport to anything that have health, so that would include terminals, right ?

 

[(XBOX)SweatyPick3L]

13 hours ago, Tengu_Bruxo said:

This video, in my opinion really expresses the issues with the update, over all the re-work was pretty good, just didn't go far enough.

 

 

[(XBOX)SweatyPick3L]

3 minutes ago, (XB1)FCastle74 said:

 

a frame without a home. 

[Tzirael]

So just a bit of feedback on the rework from someone who mains Ash. 

The marking system is a step in the right direction in my opinion so good job DE. However, there is still more work to be done but mostly QoL changes. 

Before getting into Bladestorm let me just say that Smoke Screen and Teleport changes are most welcome, I would like it if Teleport was extended to even more objects if possible.

Ash feels great as an Assassin style frame on large tilesets such as Hieracon, I've been using my bladestorm from various vantage points, marking enemies that are far away and executing them before they get close to my teammates or excavators, leaving my teammates to deal with stragglers, it's a lot of fun but only viable on a large tileset , otherwise unless the enemies are very high level bladestorm is a bit slow, but it's not terrible, it's just best to leave the marking mode on constantly while dealing with enemies by other means and executing bladestorm in those "oh S#&$" moments or just cause.

What I would like to see for marking system is 2 changes:

1)  Add a counter of how many enemies you have marked, it's a bit hard to figure out how many enemies are marked, and if you are flying past enemies and marking them you often find yourself pressing 4 and simply going out of the marking mode because you weren't looking back and your teammates just nuked all your marks, a counter would let you know if that happens.

2) Change the crosshair while the marking mode is active into a small circle or such (like Mesa's Peacemaker but MUCH smaller) and make the marking a little AoE based on the circle reticle, this would make marking grouped up enemies a bit easier and encourage a long range assassin playstyle I mentioned earlier, as obviously a circle reticle woud be able to mark more enemies  the further away they are, which also speeds up Bladestorm both in close range and long range. In my opinion this change would give Ash two viable playstyles that could be changed on the fly, using smoke screen and teleport for close range melee spree or bladestorm for safe long range stealth assassinations. To balance the new marking just make it a set balanced size rather than having it scale with range mods like Peacemaker.  

These two changes would make Bladestorm rework "complete" in my opinion. 

But you can go further... as was suggested many times before already, by changing the Bladestorm augment (which is currently made redundant by body count/drifting contact) to make the ability only summon the clones to do the killing, a Shadowstorm so to speak. Balance it by having a cool down, higher energy cost or what have you, but in my opinion it would be an amazing addition for Ash players, keeping the marking system as it is but allowing Ash do things while his shadows are executing the marked targets would make Ash a great mobile killer and deal with the new common complaint that Bladestorm is too slow. 

Anyway thank you for the rework DE, it's just not quite there yet so I hope the tweaking happens sooner rather than later. It is a step in the right direction, but it has to be taken all the way now. :)

[Blacknight00D]

Here is my 2 cents. If I mention anything in here that has been mentioned in the past 40+ pages, I apologize. 

The bladestorm rework is an improvement but in the wrong direction. What needs to happen is more interaction with the animation cut-scenes to feel like you are more of an assassin. I've have been watching the Batman Telltale Series and they do the actions within the scenes well. Bladestorm can benefit from these actions.

Idea #1 

Each Bladestorm animation should have a certain button that you have to hit within a certain time (maybe a second) to complete the animation/kill. If you hit the wrong button or miss the time limit, you miss the kill and only damage the enemy a small percentage. 

 

Idea #2

Each enemy has a critical area on the body. During the quick animation, the player should have to click within the circle which would indicate where the critical point on the body is. The circle indicator should shrink over time in the animation. The faster you click the circle, the faster the animation, the more damage you do. If you miss the circle, you will only do very minimal damage.

 

In conclusion

It has been mentioned that bladestorm has been reduced to a multiform of Teleport now without as much damage, I agree. We should go back to the old way of Bladestorm and add one of the above ideas into it. If people still want to target their enemies, the augment Rising Storm should be changed to support this.

[CTanGod]

I don't even know why we keep posting feedback, nothing will come out of it same as the Mag one. Ash is dead and there isn't anything we can do about it.

[Chirishman343]

49 minutes ago, Blacknight00D said:

Here is my 2 cents. If I mention anything in here that has been mentioned in the past 40+ pages, I apologize. 

The bladestorm rework is an improvement but in the wrong direction. What needs to happen is more interaction with the animation cut-scenes to feel like you are more of an assassin. I've have been watching the Batman Telltale Series and they do the actions within the scenes well. Bladestorm can benefit from these actions.

Idea #1 

Each Bladestorm animation should have a certain button that you have to hit within a certain time (maybe a second) to complete the animation/kill. If you hit the wrong button or miss the time limit, you miss the kill and only damage the enemy a small percentage. 

 

Idea #2

Each enemy has a critical area on the body. During the quick animation, the player should have to click within the circle which would indicate where the critical point on the body is. The circle indicator should shrink over time in the animation. The faster you click the circle, the faster the animation, the more damage you do. If you miss the circle, you will only do very minimal damage.

 

In conclusion

It has been mentioned that bladestorm has been reduced to a multiform of Teleport now without as much damage, I agree. We should go back to the old way of Bladestorm and add one of the above ideas into it. If people still want to target their enemies, the augment Rising Storm should be changed to support this.

i'd disagree with this purely because it is an online game, so any lag could render you completely useless. at least depending on how generous the click time is.