Ideas for Zephyr / Nyx / Banshee

[Fiedel]

Hello forumdwellers, recently I've had some thoughts while running missions about Zephyr, Nyx and Banshee and I thought I'd make a low quality forum post to express them.
These are changes I'd personally like on these frames and I hope this might inspire DE to make some changes, that is, if you guys also think these changes would be nice to have.

Spoiler

Zephyr

1. Tail Wind (Changed) - Tail Wind and Dive Bomb are combined into the 1st ability, Dive Bomb can be used by looking downwards and casting Tail Wind
2. Wind Wall (New) - Summmons a wall of wind that scatters enemy projectiles and speeds up friendly projectiles 
3. Tornado (Unchanged) - Is now the 3rd ability instead of the ultimate
4. Cyclone (New) - Incoming projectiles (Both friendly and hostile) are caught in a cyclone spinning quickly around Zephyr dealing damage to enemies

With these changes Zephyr will be exceptional versus ranged enemies and still have Tornado reserved for melee enemies while adding 2 new abilities that can add more variety to playstyles

Spoiler

Nyx

1. Mind Control (Unchanged) - Fine as is
2. Amnesia (New) - Enemies around Nyx lose their alert status and suffer from severe headaches, staggering them (This would have a cooldown to prevent perma-disabling)
3. Chaos (Small Change) - No more stagger at the start, use in combination with Amnesia for the same effect it had before
4. Absorb (Changed) - You can now move and attack while using Absorb (This is what the current Assimilate augment does)

• Assimilate (Changed) - Increases movement speed and attacks now discharge the energy stored

Psychic Bolts has been removed since I barely see anyone actually use it and has been replaced with something that I feel is more useful, Chaos has been slightly adjusted because of this. Absorb was changed to innately include the current Assimilate augment, since the Absorb we have now is anti-gameplay and Assimilate actually allows you to contribute more to the team than being a sponge. The new Assimilate is now a lot stronger rather than just giving the ability to attack and move slowly (Might be slightly overpowered 

Spoiler

Banshee

1. Sonic Boom (Unchanged) - I wouldn't know what to change with this. If anyone knows a good change please comment.
2. Sonar (Changed) - Enemies affected can now be seen through walls
3. Silence (Unchanged) - Good for stealthy team gameplay, but little use except for a stagger in solo. If anyone knows a good change please comment.
4. Sound Pulse (New) - Send out pulses of ultrasonic noise that makes enemies' ears bleed and fries machines' auditory circuits (You can walk freely with this new ability)

Made Sonar a tad bit more useful. Gave Banshee a new ultimate since alot of people don't like her current one and it's an anti-gameplay ability. I need to hear from Banshee mains what they'd think would be a good change to Sonic Boom and Silence.

Anyways, these are just some ideas I randomly had while playing. Comment your opinions and comment anything that could be improved. 

No idea how to close off a post so here's a random gif of a dog   thx 4 watching pls liek and subscrieb dont forget subscruption bell tank u

[TARINunit9]

12 minutes ago, Fiedel said:

Absorb was changed to innately include the current Assimilate augment, since the Absorb we have now is anti-gameplay and Assimilate actually allows you to contribute more to the team than being a sponge.

Gotta disagree with you pretty hard there

If you treat Absorb like "anti-gameplay" you're going to find yourself with very few kills and very few rewards thanks to the auto-AFK system. The point is that you throw it up for a couple seconds as a safe zone where a teammate can be revived or healed or reload, or in front of a really big threat like a couple of heavy gunners and a bombard. It's the difference between Electric Shield and SnowGlobe

By contrast, Assimilate is a boring God mode augment that lets Nyx get all the benefits of her Tonkor's PotatoForma Crita-VisiCan, with none of the downsides of playing a frame with only 100 health 50 armor

[xXDeadsinxX]

I really like the Zephyr abilities, but the rest not so much.

[Jackviator]

8 minutes ago, Fiedel said:

Nyx

1. Mind Control (Unchanged) - Fine as is
2. Amnesia (New) - Enemies around Nyx lose their alert status and suffer from severe headaches, staggering them (This would have a cooldown to prevent perma-disabling)
3. Chaos (Small Change) - No more stagger at the start, use in combination with Amnesia for the same effect it had before
4. Absorb (Changed) - You can now move and attack while using Absorb (This is what the current Assimilate augment does)

• Assimilate (Changed) - Increases movement speed and attacks now discharge the energy stored

Psychic Bolts has been removed since I barely see anyone actually use it and has been replaced with something that I feel is more useful, Chaos has been slightly adjusted because of this. Absorb was changed to innately include the current Assimilate augment, since the Absorb we have now is anti-gameplay and Assimilate actually allows you to contribute more to the team than being a sponge. The new Assimilate is now a lot stronger rather than just giving the ability to attack and move slowly (Might be slightly overpowered 

I agree that Psychic bolts needs to be changed and I like the idea that you proposed, but DE have stated in the past that they will never implement cooldowns on any ability due to their own testing showing that people would just sit in a corner, waiting for their cooldowns to finish, then use an ability and go back to sitting in a corner. So a cooldown on the power itself just isn't going to happen.

Still, I like this idea, so maybe another way to approach it would be to have the enemies affected by Amnesia be immune to it after being affected by it once, so that you have to use the power and then kill them quickly with a stealth finisher or by other means, or use another ability to counter them.

As for her 4 changing, I'm just gonna have to say no on that one. Assimilate is already one of the best augments in the game, and there's a reason they don't allow you to move around as quickly while using it: balance. They make you invincible, but make you move at a snails pace so that you're encouraged to only use it when you really need it, which I'm fine with.

Though I do like one idea from the proposed augment change; being able to use the energy absorbed to boost your own damage after the power ends/sending out the shockwave would be a welcome buff to the base ability, but IMO it would be OP to have this affect Assimilate Nyx while the power is in effect.

[Uan91]

1 hour ago, Fiedel said:

Made Sonar a tad bit more useful. Gave Banshee a new ultimate since alot of people don't like her current one and it's an anti-gameplay ability. I need to hear from Banshee mains what they'd think would be a good change to Sonic Boom and Silence.

A lot WHO exactly? I bet there are 100 for each one that don't like it.

#StopHateOnBanshee

[Lored]

Nyx and Banshee are fine! 

[AlphaPHENIX]

I am just gona say this, a lot of Zephyr players won't like your idea of removing Turbulance/Jet Stream.

One of said players is me.

[Ascarith]

 

Just now, AlphaPHENIX said:

I am just gona say this, a lot of Zephyr players won't like your idea of removing Turbulance/Jet Stream.

One of said players is me.

Another of said players is me.

More thoughts:

Tailwind/Divebomb - Combining the two is a common suggestion and I don't have any strong opinions on it. 

Windwall - This sounds like a worse version of Volt's Electric Shield. She can't block bullets with it, per your description, so she now has nothing vs. Grineer (with possible exception of Bombards).

Tornado - If you were going to remove an ability, this is the one I personally hate the most. It has some uses (e.g. "oh crap" moments), but it's generally unreliable and often does more harm than good (flinging enemies you have to kill out of the map/into terrain, throwing live enemies prone so it's harder to tell what's dead and what's not). Especially hurts (me) because you used this to replace what is arguably Zephyr's strongest ability currently.

Turbulence - You removed it, which makes me very sad. Now I have to be slow and squishy. She was always kind of squishy (no armor, high HP), but Turbulence helped her negate a lot of damage that would shred her health. 

Cyclone - I'm personally not a fan of abilities that mess with how  teammates play the game. I wouldn't like having a Zephyr in my squad (even though I'm usually the Zephyr) if I was using a projectile weapon. Can you imagine trying to play a defense using projectile weapons with a Zephyr that won't stop casting Cyclone and stays on top of the objective? Good luck taking anything out at range.

Nyx's Absorb (current state) is a good indication of what this would look like. If Nyx and the rest of the squad aren't on the same page, Nyx might cast Absorb over a stationary defense target. Now her teammates literally cannot shoot anything (except her bubble) if they're standing near the panel and also cannot shoot anything near the panel regardless of where they are. Assimilate actually helps her in that regard, since now she can actually defend targets without messing with her teammates' abilities to shoot things. And she can also actually play the game at the same time...

As a random side note - I run Assimilate basically just in case someone goes down. So many times that I've tried to shield a downed teammate with Absorb (so someone can safely revive) and everyone else just runs away thinking I'm going to revive that person (or they just don't care). 

[NyxCrab]

I'm gonna put my replies for each thing in a spoiler so it's slightly easier to read or something

Spoiler

Tail Wind: Yes please, this is a change I've wanted for a while now.
Wind Wall: if this acts like Turbulence where the enemy projectiles can't hurt you on top of speeding up ally ones and it stays in front of you even while you move, this could be great. but if it just flat out replaces Turbulence with something worst no thanks.
Tornado: Needs to be recastable
Cyclone: Maybe make it so instead of surrounding Zephyr, you plop it down in an area you target, it constantly staggers enemies in the area and takes damage from enemy and ally bullets. But that could be too good idk.

Spoiler

Amnesia: Instead of a cooldown, enemies who were affected by it can't be affected by it again. Or something.
Chaos: Unless you're lowering the cost on both Chaos and Amnesia, the change here doesn't seem to have a point other than trying to force Synergy into her kit.
Absorb: Honestly Absorb as it is is perfectly fine. Assimilate is a good augment, but I don't think it should become innate to Absorb.

Spoiler

Sonic Boom: It's fine as is. At most it needs to be able to be cast while moving and reloading without interrupting it, but that isn't really necessary.
Sonar: Could be good and gives it some utility
Silence: Make it recastable. That's all.
Soundquake: Honestly I don't know how to change this. Your idea is ok, but it could be better.

 

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

1 hour ago, Fiedel said:

Hello forumdwellers, recently I've had some thoughts while running missions about Zephyr, Nyx and Banshee and I thought I'd make a low quality forum post to express them.
These are changes I'd personally like on these frames and I hope this might inspire DE to make some changes, that is, if you guys also think these changes would be nice to have.

  Hide contents

Zephyr

1. Tail Wind (Changed) - Tail Wind and Dive Bomb are combined into the 1st ability, Dive Bomb can be used by looking downwards and casting Tail Wind
2. Wind Wall (New) - Summmons a wall of wind that scatters enemy projectiles and speeds up friendly projectiles 
3. Tornado (Unchanged) - Is now the 3rd ability instead of the ultimate
4. Cyclone (New) - Incoming projectiles (Both friendly and hostile) are caught in a cyclone spinning quickly around Zephyr dealing damage to enemies

With these changes Zephyr will be exceptional versus ranged enemies and still have Tornado reserved for melee enemies while adding 2 new abilities that can add more variety to playstyles

I can't really agree with these. This idea merely rearranges every existing moves and attempts to combine some while being less effective and efficient.  It also doesn't address a lot of Zephyr s current issues.

1.Tailwind change is a suggestion always posted on the forums that doesn't address the concern people have with Tailwind offering little function and dive bomb not functioning enough.

2. Wind Wall is just turbulence with the augment that doesn't follow Zephyr (at least from your description).

3. Tornado is the same thing but doesn't address any of the current concerns. 

4. Cyclone is literally a mag bubble cast on yourself.

24 minutes ago, NyxCrab said:

I'm gonna put my replies for each thing in a spoiler so it's slightly easier to read or something

I can completely understand your frustrations with the existing moves but they're pretty solid and only require a few tweaks to make them exceptional. I even think it may be more beneficial for dive bomb and tailwind to be separated. Here's what I mean :

 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited December 5, 2016 by (PS4)RenovaKunumaru

[Azzaruth]

1. Tail Wind (Changed) - Tail Wind and Dive Bomb are combined into the 1st ability, Dive Bomb can be used by looking downwards and casting Tail Wind
2. Wind Wall (New) - Summmons a wall of wind that scatters enemy projectiles and speeds up friendly projectiles 
3. Tornado (Unchanged) - Is now the 3rd ability instead of the ultimate
4. Cyclone (New) - Incoming projectiles (Both friendly and hostile) are caught in a cyclone spinning quickly around Zephyr dealing damage to enemies

1. Not that interesting, and makes the ability harder to control.

2. This is Volt's electric shield. It's pretty mediocre, and I am guessing in your version we can't even pick it up, so it is even a nerfed version.

3. Tornado is Zephyr's worst ability! I can get a use out of tailwind, divebomb, and turbulence, but tornado is just awful!

4. No, we do not need another trolling ability.

5. Where is Turbulence?

[doomagent13]

I think Nyx and Banshee are mostly fine.

For Zephyr, I'd say move the jump from the ground from Tail-Wind to Dive Bomb, and shorten the duration of Tornado in exchange for more of something else, but that's about it.

[Jackviator]

5 hours ago, Fiedel said:

Silence (Unchanged) - Good for stealthy team gameplay, but little use except for a stagger in solo. If anyone knows a good change please comment.

Make it recastable. Boom, fixed. No more need for tiny-duration spam builds on Savage Banshees, so people who play that way can still effectively use her other skills.

5 hours ago, Fiedel said:

Sound Pulse (New) - Send out pulses of ultrasonic noise that makes enemies' ears bleed and fries machines' auditory circuits (You can walk freely with this new ability)

Ok... but what would this do, exactly? From the looks of it, it sounds like just a souped-up version of silence that damages enemies, which she doesn't need, because she already has Silence. (Correct me if I'm wrong, it just looks that way to me).

[EinheriarJudith]

it blows my mind that people complain about banshee and nyx which are 2 very balanced frames. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, EinheriarJudith said:

it blows my mind that people complain about banshee and nyx which are 2 very balanced frames. 

Because they're balanced CC frames that function best in a squad of 4 frames where others are the kill frames. Look at the changes to the 4th ability on each; Absorb is becoming a tanking quasi-exalted ability, and Sound Quake becomes a World on Fire.

And worse, all the Zephyr changes without actually addressing any of the issues that Zephyr has...

Unfortunately, as much as I enjoy jumping into rework threads with frames like these, where you can really get into the mechanics and fix things with abilities or concept changes that keep the basic ability but change up how it actually effects gameplay... I don't think OP actually has a clear view of where these frames sit in the eyes of the developers and the multiple roles the players are able to achieve in the game with them.

It's a little odd, and more specifically the changes made seem to have been concepted without weighing them for in-game effect, it's kind of in a vacuum. Banshee's 4th is not anti-gameplay any more than Mesa's is, it's a massive CC for other team members to take advantage of.Nyx's 4th is not anti-gameplay, it's a gigantic aggro magnet for drawing enemies into a point and then using their own damage against them. Zephyr's 4th doesn't mechanically do what it's supposed to, so we should fix it to do what DE has said it should do, rather than just moving it to another button and putting a new ability in its place.

[Fiedel]

As I said, these are just random thoughts I had and they weren't thought through extensively. I've read the comments, here are some of my thoughts on what's been said so far. 

Spoiler

Nyx

Absorb: The idea I had for Nyx's Absorb is slightly ridiculous, and yes it's overpowered, but the Assimilate augment just feels so good and in my eyes it's what Absorb should have been. It has made Absorb fun to use, unlike the version we have now where you just sit still at a defense target or use it as a quick decoy when someone's reviving someone else.

>The new Absorb could greatly reduce the damage you deal since it's a defensive ability anyway, it would still be a great ability and the augment would still be good while reducing the effectiveness of things like Tonkor that kill large groups in one hit, of course Tonkor would still be able to kill groups of enemies when you have Absorbed a lot of damage using the new Augment.

Amnesia: What I meant with a cooldown on the Amnesia ability was cooldown on individual enemies who have been affected, much like what Chaos has. The added utility of targets losing their alert status is something the current stagger from Chaos doesn't do, and is in my eyes something that makes this ability useful on its own and quite a decent replacement to Phychic Bolts.

Chaos: Stagger doesn't have to go, but it would allow you to use Amnesia after casting Chaos and possibly completely disable enemies for a pretty long time.

> Chaos will cost 50 energy and Amnesia 25 so it doesn't cast more to stagger and confuse someone than before

Spoiler

Banshee

Sonic Boom: Would be great to have this be a one-handed ability which doesn't interrupt reloads.

Sonar: Nobody seemed to disagree with the simple change, which would be a nice and balanced addition.

Silence: Make it recastable but with a cooldown per target.

Sound Quake: Nobody seemed to like my idea, personally though I don't like the sitting still and it's incredibly annoying when someone runs a Banshee that hits the entire map in an Intercept or Defense mission. Yes, it's a great ability to have in sorties to deny the enemy ever coming close to a point, but it denies 3 other members of your team to feel useful except from slaughtering permanently incapacitated enemies in their spawn locations. The change I proposed would allow people to actually do something when they're fighting alongside a Banshee and Banshee could still do damage and disable enemies instead of sitting in one spot listening to SoundQuakeLoop.wav

>The new Sound Quake could be an alternate version of the current one, enemies closer to Banshee take damage and are disabled more frequently and enemies across the map are affected by it way less. Banshee would still be great for Defense missions and she could easily defend a point in Interception. This change would just nerf her ability to permanently disable enemies in very large areas making it less annoying for her squadmates. It would be great if you could walk while using this, since it's not Nyx with godmode I think you guys will agree with the ability to walk on this one. Yes this basically is giving Banshee Nyx's Assimilate, but it's way more fun than sitting still on both frames. I wouldn't mind this being an Augment if they ever decide making two augments for one ability, I'd get it instantly and I'm sure a lot of other people would too.

Spoiler

Zephyr

Tail Wind/Dive Bomb: Apparently it's a very common topic to include Dive Bomb with Tail Wind, though some people are concerned it'll be tricky to use Dive Bomb when the abilites are combined and others don't really see the use in the Tail Wind. You could always make it function like Slash Dash or Rhino's charge but that would be another copypaste of the same ability.

>Tail Wind could be the first part of a two-part ability where you go up high in the air and then slam down (Dive Bomb)

Turbulence (and Wind Wall): My intention was never to remove Turbulence but to split it up (into Wind Wall and Cyclone) but it seems that people don't like that idea. I thought it would be nice to be able to drop Turbulence like a Volt shield and have it speed up projectiles like the Jet Stream Augment.

>The new Turbulence could be dropped like a Volt shield which would turn enemies' fire back at them. If you have Jet Stream dropped Turbulences will give speed to allies and allied projectiles that move through it, Jet Stream would stop giving allies around Zephyr bonuses though.

Tornado: Everyone seems to dislike this ability, personally I like Tornado, it gives good crowd control and blocks fire so that's why I decided to leave it in. I can't think up of a good replacement for this one.

Cyclone: Cyclone was supposed to be a better version of Turbulence that would add a bunch of power to it (which is why it was the ultimate), but people were put off because they thought it wouldn't block hitscan weapons and completely mess up allies' projectile weapons. 

>Cyclone's effects could be added to Tornado and they wouldn't scoop up friendly projectiles unless they're shot directly at them. The projectiles would go spiralling to the top of Tornadoes and hit enemies there which would turn Tornado into a decent killing ability.

Zephyr now has a slot over for another ability but I have no idea what I'd put there so feel free to make up your own.

Well here are some more ideas based on the comments, let's hope more people will like these. Also, I'm not a main in any of these frames, these are just changes that would make me want to play the frames more, sorry if you're a proud Zephyr/Nyx/Banshee main and got offended.

[DreamsmithJane]

I want Sonic Boom to be a one-handed cast. I don't think Sonar needs a buff, and I'm not sure that would really help. We already have a map. Silence is great as-is. Sound Pulse...is that basically World on Fire? I'm not sure I would even use that.

On 12/5/2016 at 1:48 PM, Uan91 said:

A lot WHO exactly? I bet there are 100 for each one that don't like it.

#StopHateOnBanshee

Banshee is my most played frame, at 30% of my 1000-some hours in Warframe, and I absolutely hate Sound Quake. And I promise, nobody likes to see you press 4 and AFK for most of a mission, while enemies stagger around harmlessly. "Oh, the game broke again. Guess this mission's a freebie." Except you have the ability to make that happen. Not fun at all. It's not Banshee people hate. It's Sound Quake. Even the laziest of players will get tired of it. Even those for whom Resonating Quake cheese is their principal motivation for playing Banshee will either play a different build, play a different frame, or stop playing altogether after a while.

23 hours ago, Jackviator said:

Make it recastable. Boom, fixed. No more need for tiny-duration spam builds on Savage Banshees, so people who play that way can still effectively use her other skills.

Can we not, though? Silence is already one of the most powerful CC abilities in the game. It can already re-stun unlimited times for its duration. If it could re-stun its entire area at will for just 4-5 seconds of Zenurik (max efficiency) at the press of a button, it would be game-breaking. It's already bad enough that you can spam Silence. To do that and stack Sonar? No. Please, no. Something's gotta give, there. If Banshee's power were any more accessible, she would have to be significantly weaker. Then you'd end up with...well, Nova. And Nova is interesting in her own right, but she lacks Banshee's rewarding and unforgiving feel.

[LuckyCharm]

Zephyrs best ability is turbulence and you removed it. That's a no from me player. 

[Azzaruth]

Tail Wind/Dive Bomb: Apparently it's a very common topic to include Dive Bomb with Tail Wind, though some people are concerned it'll be tricky to use Dive Bomb when the abilites are combined and others don't really see the use in the Tail Wind. You could always make it function like Slash Dash or Rhino's charge but that would be another copypaste of the same ability.

>Tail Wind could be the first part of a two-part ability where you go up high in the air and then slam down (Dive Bomb)

Turbulence (and Wind Wall): My intention was never to remove Turbulence but to split it up (into Wind Wall and Cyclone) but it seems that people don't like that idea. I thought it would be nice to be able to drop Turbulence like a Volt shield and have it speed up projectiles like the Jet Stream Augment.

>The new Turbulence could be dropped like a Volt shield which would turn enemies' fire back at them. If you have Jet Stream dropped Turbulences will give speed to allies and allied projectiles that move through it, Jet Stream would stop giving allies around Zephyr bonuses though.

Tornado: Everyone seems to dislike this ability, personally I like Tornado, it gives good crowd control and blocks fire so that's why I decided to leave it in. I can't think up of a good replacement for this one.

Cyclone: Cyclone was supposed to be a better version of Turbulence that would add a bunch of power to it (which is why it was the ultimate), but people were put off because they thought it wouldn't block hitscan weapons and completely mess up allies' projectile weapons. 

>Cyclone's effects could be added to Tornado and they wouldn't scoop up friendly projectiles unless they're shot directly at them. The projectiles would go spiralling to the top of Tornadoes and hit enemies there which would turn Tornado into a decent killing ability.

 

1. No, this kills a good portion of her mobility even more than the original suggestion.

2. We have a Volt already.

3. Tornado is bad, useless, unpredictable, and does not synergize well with other frames. Like Limbo.

4. I'd rather not have new Zephyrs thinking using Tornado is a good idea, especially since most people tend to go for a high duration build rather than a lower one. Plus we would still have the ever common problem of tornadoes blocking everything.

[Birdframe_Prime]

12 hours ago, Fiedel said:

As I said, these are just random thoughts I had and they weren't thought through extensively.

Indeed, but, let's look this through and see if we can find you some fixes that might mechanically do things that you're hoping, without changing what benefits the abilities already have, just how people use them.

I would also like to request a little adjustment in thinking; the term 'cooldown' is thrown about a lot in your posts. Cooldowns were tried in Warframe before, they were shown to impede gameplay and cause players to spend more time avoiding combat and waiting for recharge than actually playing the mission. Abilities do have duration timers, but many of those can be refreshed, and those that can't have a good reason for keeping that duration.

So, first off, Nyx. This is your current train of thought:

Spoiler

Absorb: The idea I had for Nyx's Absorb is slightly ridiculous, and yes it's overpowered, but the Assimilate augment just feels so good and in my eyes it's what Absorb should have been. It has made Absorb fun to use, unlike the version we have now where you just sit still at a defense target or use it as a quick decoy when someone's reviving someone else.

>The new Absorb could greatly reduce the damage you deal since it's a defensive ability anyway, it would still be a great ability and the augment would still be good while reducing the effectiveness of things like Tonkor that kill large groups in one hit, of course Tonkor would still be able to kill groups of enemies when you have Absorbed a lot of damage using the new Augment.

Amnesia: What I meant with a cooldown on the Amnesia ability was cooldown on individual enemies who have been affected, much like what Chaos has. The added utility of targets losing their alert status is something the current stagger from Chaos doesn't do, and is in my eyes something that makes this ability useful on its own and quite a decent replacement to Phychic Bolts.

Chaos: Stagger doesn't have to go, but it would allow you to use Amnesia after casting Chaos and possibly completely disable enemies for a pretty long time.

> Chaos will cost 50 energy and Amnesia 25 so it doesn't cast more to stagger and confuse someone than before

However, here are some immediate discussion points:

Spoiler

First, Absorb. Opinions on its viability in the original form are up for debate, but the simple point is that it's a well balanced ability that scales its damage off enemy damage, so it will only ever deal to the enemy as much damage as they would deal to themselves, unless your team then pumps additional damage into it. It's used as an aggro-target and is great for pulling enemies into a point.

There are plenty of uses beyond the boring sit-in-protest one that people seem to use it for. The argument 'just because you see people doing the one thing again and again, doesn't mean that it's the only use for it' applies here.

If anything, the Assimilate augment is too good. It takes the balances of Absorb and almost totally negates them. The only limits now are that it doesn't have scaling from allied damage and a mobility debuff. There are plenty of melee weapons that have large amounts of movement in their stances, like the Ack and Brunt, or even weapons like the Twin Basolk having a mod that allows literal teleporting to a target, so overcoming movement debuffs is easy.

Opinions aside, Absorb is a well-balanced and well-scaling ability that doesn't need fixing outside of the views of individuals.

Next: Chaos/Amnesia. While I can understand the wish to get rid of Psychic Bolts and put in a new ability, DE have made it quite clear, with the implementing of her passive, and the minor reworks they've already done, that it's here to stay. The Chaos, Mind Control and Absorb abilities, moreover, are designed to specifically aggro targets, and casting any of them after Amnesia would immediately counter the affects of that ability. Unfortunately for your idea, as good as it would be, it has anti-synergy with her kit, which is all about deliberate and positive use of alerted enemies to get them to inflict damage either onto your Absorb or onto each other with Mind Control and Chaos.

It was a good plan, just not in keeping with her other abilities.

Now, next on this list is Banshee:

Spoiler

 

Sonic Boom: Would be great to have this be a one-handed ability which doesn't interrupt reloads.

Sonar: Nobody seemed to disagree with the simple change, which would be a nice and balanced addition.

Silence: Make it recastable but with a cooldown per target.

Sound Quake: Nobody seemed to like my idea, personally though I don't like the sitting still and it's incredibly annoying when someone runs a Banshee that hits the entire map in an Intercept or Defense mission. Yes, it's a great ability to have in sorties to deny the enemy ever coming close to a point, but it denies 3 other members of your team to feel useful except from slaughtering permanently incapacitated enemies in their spawn locations. The change I proposed would allow people to actually do something when they're fighting alongside a Banshee and Banshee could still do damage and disable enemies instead of sitting in one spot listening to SoundQuakeLoop.wav

>The new Sound Quake could be an alternate version of the current one, enemies closer to Banshee take damage and are disabled more frequently and enemies across the map are affected by it way less. Banshee would still be great for Defense missions and she could easily defend a point in Interception. This change would just nerf her ability to permanently disable enemies in very large areas making it less annoying for her squadmates. It would be great if you could walk while using this, since it's not Nyx with godmode I think you guys will agree with the ability to walk on this one. Yes this basically is giving Banshee Nyx's Assimilate, but it's way more fun than sitting still on both frames. I wouldn't mind this being an Augment if they ever decide making two augments for one ability, I'd get it instantly and I'm sure a lot of other people would too.

 

A couple of good points, a couple of bad. Banshee can be improved, and should be in a couple of cases, but I think you've missed the point on other parts of her kit:

Spoiler

Sonic Boom definitely should be one-handed, so many other abilities of this kind are, and SB is particularly strong. As long as an enemy is not actively animation-locked, such as the ground-slam from heavy units, then a guaranteed ragdoll is always useful. Being able to not die while animation locked yourself, would be perfect.

Sonar being able to see through walls doesn't make logical sense (walls block sonar pings usually), but it does make game-play sense. I can see why nobody is objecting, wall-hacks are fun in any game.

You've missed the point with Silence, however, since this is one of her specifically team-based abilities. The point of it really, honestly is the silenced weapons and reduced aggro to the entire group, since her base passive does the same for her solo, the stagger is an addition that was put in purely to make it more viable solo. If you're having trouble with the re-cast, then drop your range a bit and for difficult enemies use back-and-forward motion to re-proc the stagger as they cross and re-cross the boundary of the ability. The base range of Sonar is 15m further than the effect of Silence, so this shouldn't be too adversely affected by a marginal drop in range to Silence.

There technically is no cooldown per target anyway, all you have to do is run a little way to make them leave the ability and it will effect them again once they cross back in, and there is only a negative effect of putting a cooldown on the stun of an enemy if you were to make the ability re-castable. The only reason to make it re-castable would be to re-stun an enemy, and currently you have a way to do that without wasting the energy. As it stands the duration on the main cast is to ensure that you are actively playing and working with your team, not just macro-ing the ability to recast before the duration is up.

And Sound Quake does need fixing, but not by changing it into a new ability. Your thoughts above come pretty close, but they don't address two problems that exist and shouldn't. For example, have you noticed that the second Banshee stops using SQ all the enemies are back to shooting by the time she's managed to stand up again? Pretty useless ability for CC in a non-team setting, right? This is due to the same problem that Sonic Boom has; if an enemy is animation locked, they can't be ragdolled or knocked down. SQ procs both a stagger and a knock down with the status on it, but enemies only stagger because the stagger animation takes priority over the knock down. This is compounded by her vulnerability to enemies that can fly, like Sapper Ospreys and the dreaded blue-rings-of-death.

If SQ reliably knocked enemies down, people would use it more actively in shorter duration bursts to compliment a more active play style; knock them down, shoot them as they're getting up, do it again. So all you'd need to do is have the knock-down proc first, instead of the stagger, on the priority list for affected enemies. The damage doesn't need to change, but the effect would be that every time you finished the ability, you would stand up and be able to move, shoot or do something else before the enemies returned to normal and re-targeted you. More importantly, it would mean that you would have more incentive to stop and shoot the flying enemies before they reached you, rather than relying on a team to keep you alive.

Your idea for a range-based fall-off to the effect, now that I like. There is a 50m radius hard-cap on range for abilities, which is very slightly circumvented by the 'pulses' of SQ, meaning that enemies touching the radius are pushed beyond it. In any case, on smaller defense tiles this can, as is frequently pointed out, lock enemies into spawn and be boring as hell. A way to fix this would be to have a capped radius of Status effect vs a full radius of Damage. So if SQ now guarantees a knock-down on enemies, the range on being able to knock them down would be capped at, say, 30m, while the damage could be dealt to all enemies within the max range.

You would have that simultaneous buff/nerf that would actually count as a balance pass. SQ can no longer lock enemies into stagger animation in their spawn from the centre of the map, but will still deal damage to them reliably (even if it's small damage from a larger range build) and instead of the endless stagger, enemies will be reliably knocked down making the ability far more viable in solo play as an area stun + damage.

What do you think?

But Zephyr... oh the poor misunderstood creature.

Her kit is actually designed to be amazing, but fall short in a couple of embarrassing ways. She's designed to have superior air mobility (not flying, as some keep saying, but mobility), an area knock-down that synergises with her 1, the perfect defense against ranged damage to synergise with her high mobility, and one of the best area CC abilities they could think of.

Woefully... this isn't the case. Her air mobility is great, save for the gravity bug at the end of Tailwind, you can steer her in the air, you have low gravity, it works exactly as intended... except she instantly becomes exactly the same as other frames when she Aim Glides? Why can't she steer that too? Weird. And why does Tailwind keep getting over-looked in favour of Bullet Jump? Oh, because Bullet Jump interacts with the other wall-clings and runs and doesn't cost energy. Her ground slam is pretty much equivalent to a regular melee ground slam, has the same problem as Sonic Boom, and the range is so limited that the only way to affect a large group is to max your range and stick on Heavy Impact for the more certain knock-down; you shouldn't need a specific mod to make an ability do what it says it does already. Turbulence is near-enough perfect, there are still a couple of projectiles that get through it (probably due to the tracking logic on them, like the Grineer Hellion rockets, Grineer flame throwers, or the Corpus Comba Swarmer Detron seeking bullets) but the balance of how perfectly it deflects ranged attacks but lets through blasts and melee is a great reminder to use your mobility better. And Tornado... augh... it's this... lump of potential that can't achieve it.

This, you see, is the key. If her abilities did what they were supposed to, and better, then you wouldn't need to change anything, she'd be as viable as any of the top frames.

Here, let's look at things:

Spoiler

Passive low gravity; divisive, this one, because some love it and never want to change it, some see it as an annoyance when moving fast through levels. In either case, it should also apply to Aim Glide to allow us extended duration and the ability to steer the movement the same as we can steer her in-air already. There's no reason to nerf that movement just because we trigger a slow fall.

Tailwind.

Problems: Without range and duration, only goes as far as a Bullet Jump, but can't be used in combination with wall runs or clings; momentum must be spent after animation before other actions can be performed, even if you hit a wall at the start of the cast. Cannot pass through enemies if grouped up in a small space. Does minimum effect possible to enemies in a very small radius whether you fly through them or launch from a group of them, just minor damage. So has no positive effect from being used actively against mobs, nor from being used in confined spaces. Bug exists with the low-gravity passive that means we get normal grav after casting, this needs to be patched.

Limitations: It's a 1 ability, can't deal heavy damage or out-perform other 1/2 abilities. Zephyr is not a damage frame, not by a long shot.

Solutions: First, the range, being able to extend that range by holding the button, at the cost of energy, would allow Zephyr to cross large distances as fast as any other frame with mobility casts (a speeding Volt or a long range Warp Nova). Second, the wall-collision; hitting a wall should allow us to use the wall run/cling functions so that we can quickly re-align ourselves and continue moving, and casting Tailwind from a wall run or cling should act like we've cast it from in-air. Third, the effects on enemies need to be something small, but worth using; two suggestions would be to have the ability pass through enemies, causing a stun, or to knock enemies down allowing us to pass over them, take your pick on which you'd rather have, they're both good ^^

Tailwind then becomes a more active cast, more mobile, and easy to cancel out of, also very useful in confined spaces and useful for a team following behind you.

Dive Bomb.

Problems: Low range, base of 6m, max of 17m, by comparison all other radial CC moves have at least a base of 20m. Unreliable knock-down (same problem as I stated before). Without height, the damage is minimal, but again, Zephyr isn't a damage frame.

Solutions: The range could be buffed at base, but not necessarily by much, a better option would be to have the range scale with the height, so that the radius could be extended up to a cap along with the damage. Say, range extends with height up to 90%, so at max range of 17m, height could scale the radius up to 30m, putting it on par with other radial stun abiliites, it would also make Dive Bomb Vortex far more effective as CC. The knock down is simple to fix, give it an animation-based knock down like the twirl from Stomp, but sped up so it acts in real-time, and this will then override any and all other activities an enemy could be doing to glitch out of it, thus meaning that everything except boss units would be reliably CC'd.

25 Energy from a height of 20-25m to guaranteed psuedo-ragdoll a 30m radius of enemies? That's a good cast at base, and gets better when you consider it could be only 8 energy from 1m high to CC a radius of 17m. Simple, but effective, right?

Tornado.

Problems: Augh... the problems with this...

1. Free roaming means the movement is limited and slow. Most enemies can simply run past the funnels.
2. Duration of CC is inconsistent, enemies can be held in the air for only 2-3 seconds before being flung away, or they can be held for 30 seconds and pressed against a roof permanently. This also means that elemental procs, part of the base of the ability, are less consistent.
3. Funnels cannot be shot through, for the purpose of absorbing our elemental damage type, and so enemies on the other side, or pressed against a ceiling, cannot be killed, and abilities that rely on line-of-sight cannot hurt them. You can still shoot an enemy that's picked up, as long as it's in front of the funnel, but that doesn't help.
4. Enemies and loot are scattered to all corners.
5. Pathing of funnels means that they are frequently able to go where enemies are not, and so get lost, seeking an enemy through a wall or over a rock, and never get into range of the mobs in order to capture them.
6. The ability lasts as long as Turbulence, but with no off-switch. If you mod for a long, effective Turbulence, you get a long ineffective Tornado.

Solutions: Simple; limit the range to allow all the other parts to be fixed, and then give it the option to manually cancel before the end of duration.

By limit the range, I mean to keep the general basic part of Tornado (the four funnels) the same, but make the distance they can roam from the point of casting a radius affected by mods. Each funnel has its usual area that it captures enemies within, but will then only move up to a certain distance away from the point of cast, meaning it will always be where you want it to be. Within that radius, funnels can then move faster, they can actually chase and pursue enemies, and they target an enemy the moment it crosses the radius; no enemy would by able to reach the central point without at least one funnel picking it up, but also the base capture range of a funnel means that if one happens to be right on the border of the ability, it can actually pick up an enemy from outside it just by being there.

Fix the pathing so that funnels travel on the enemy nav-mesh, meaning they'll never be where an enemy can't go, and will always track down enemies in a logical progression.

Fix the duration of the capture, so an enemy is lifted and held in the tornado (spinning and flailing as usual) for, say, 10 seconds. This means that you have 10 ticks of damage, plus the initial capture, and that's 10 chances of proc'ing the elemental effects guaranteed. Reliable damage, reliable status chance, reliable CC.

Fix the release of enemies so it's actually a release; after the ten seconds an enemy is released with upward momentum, meaning they'll hit a roof and then fall to the ground. Only once they've touched the ground again can they be picked up again, so there's no chance of being pressed to the roof until the ability ends. There's also no scattering of loot and enemies, because it will all fall back into the ability radius, and surviving enemies can be re-targeted and picked up again.

Allow all abilities to affect enemies inside a funnel, and allow Zephyr's abilities to deal bonus damage to them, for synergy.

And finally? A manual cancel. Allow players to turn it off and re-cast it somewhere else, or just stop annoying their team.

And why does this help? What affect does this have on gameplay? It turns Tornado into an area denial ability, like Vortex or Tentacle Swarm, enemies that enter are CC'd quickly, and no enemy escapes until the end of the cast. You can mod it for less range and more strength (because if the damage was always ten ticks of damage per enemy, you could actually deal quite a lot of elemental damage and procs using this) to protect a Defense pod, or a little more range to keep enemies off an Interception node, and max the range to patrol and CC most of a room, but with a little less effectiveness.

If you can tell... I've thought about this a lot. A. Lot. Because I love Zephyr to bits and want to see her kit actually work, not become a new frame with some arbitrary rework.

In any case... discussion? Thoughts? Let me hear them.

[Fiedel]

1 hour ago, Thaylien said:

In any case... discussion? Thoughts? Let me hear them.

Your ideas for Zephyr changes sound nice and actually fix some issues she has, unlike mine. 

Thanks for your... elaborate reply, though I won't be going into a discussion since you've made valid points all around.

1 hour ago, Thaylien said:

If you can tell... I've thought about this a lot. A. Lot.

Just curious, how much is 'A. Lot.'? 

[Birdframe_Prime]

Thanks for reading through, I do tend to wall-of-text, apologies for that ^^

3 hours ago, Fiedel said:

Just curious, how much is 'A. Lot.'? 

Well I joined Warframe on my original account for update 12. Zephyr was my goal. I literally joined this game to get that frame.

Since then I've actually learned to play, and I can take that little under-performing frame on solo survival runs on Mot that top the hour mark without using focus schools. Just some relaxing Turbulence and weapon play, with a smattering of Dive Bomb for stuns, Tailwind for 'no, I don't want to deal with your crap right now' moments, and Tornado for 'will you please just leave me to bird in peace?'

That said, I can do way better with other frames, she's just a relaxing frame for me to play, and I would like to see those abilities be better. I'd like to join a pub game, see somebody playing Zephyr and think 'oh, good, we'll have decent CC when we need it' or 'nice, we'll be able to sprint this'.

As far as re-work stuff goes, I've been debating things with people in the forums for about half a year now, and I'm fairly clear on my goals: Don't change what the frame is, or does, just fix how it does it, and maybe add something new for fun and profit.

Thanks again!