New Warframe: Nidus Feedback

[Darkmoone1]

Ok so a few issues I've had:

1. Teammates can't see how many stacks Nidus has. I think that should be fixed in the UI. You know how you can see teammates health, shields and energy by pressing Z(default)? Well, if someones using Nidus, include the stacks as well.

2. Sometimes Nidus won't cast his Virulence after already casting it. Sometimes it works fine and I can use Virulence back to back, but other times I simply can't. This leads me to mashing the 1 button in hopes Nidus casts his ability. Not sure if this has to do with Casting speed, range, or anything else.

[KrypTic.]

Just now, Darkmoone1 said:

Ok so a few issues I've had:

1. Teammates can't see how many stacks Nidus has. I think that should be fixed in the UI. You know how you can see teammates health, shields and energy by pressing Z(default)? Well, if someones using Nidus, include the stacks as well.

2. Sometimes Nidus won't cast his Virulence after already casting it. Sometimes it works fine and I can use Virulence back to back, but other times I simply can't. This leads me to mashing the 1 button in hopes Nidus casts his ability. Not sure if this has to do with Casting speed, range, or anything else.

 

 

Ive personally had the same, or something similar with your second dot point, but not sure of the cause, though ever since I started using 'Natural talent' I haven't noticed the bug occur, might have to do with button mashing and the ability keeping up to speed? not too sure.

As for the first point, what would ultimately be the need for the additional UI element? it would be nice adding specificity would be nice.
Perhaps to see if they're able to be healed but his 4th? or an overall quality of life experience?

Thanks for the contribution. :)

[Darkmoone1]

10 minutes ago, KrypTic. said:

Ive personally had the same, or something similar with your second dot point, but not sure of the cause, though ever since I started using 'Natural talent' I haven't noticed the bug occur, might have to do with button mashing and the ability keeping up to speed? not too sure.

As for the first point, what would ultimately be the need for the additional UI element? it would be nice adding specificity would be nice.
Perhaps to see if they're able to be healed but his 4th? or an overall quality of life experience?

Thanks for the contribution. :)

I think in terms of seeing how many stacks Nidus has for his teammates would allow coordination for premades (or Pugs, Lotus-willing) in order to let Nidus accumulate his power, to see if he can link, or even use his ultimate to support the teammates. So it would be ultimately QoL for more coordinated teamwork. 

Edited December 24, 2016 by Darkmoone1

[KrypTic.]

Just now, Darkmoone1 said:

I think in terms of seeing how many stacks Nidus has for his teammates would allow coordination for premades (or Pugs, Lotus-willing) in order to let Nidus accumulate his power, to see if he can link, or even use his ultimate to support the teammates. So it would be ultimately QoL for more coordinated teamwork. 

 

Thanks for the clarification, yes it would always be good to see if your Nidus needs help build his stacks/combo so that he can be self-reliant.

[Wargle]

Corpus type weapons tear him down so fast its insane. particularly those technicians. theres a couple damage types in the orokin void that do it too.

Its nuts how quickly they evaporate his health compared with infested and grineer

[PsiWarp]

1 hour ago, Darkmoone1 said:

Ok so a few issues I've had:

1. Teammates can't see how many stacks Nidus has. I think that should be fixed in the UI. You know how you can see teammates health, shields and energy by pressing Z(default)? Well, if someones using Nidus, include the stacks as well.

2. Sometimes Nidus won't cast his Virulence after already casting it. Sometimes it works fine and I can use Virulence back to back, but other times I simply can't. This leads me to mashing the 1 button in hopes Nidus casts his ability. Not sure if this has to do with Casting speed, range, or anything else.

I agree, it can be as simple as a buff icon beside his name in the squad list showing the number of stacks.

Virulence has a few rules. It can't be recast until the Infestation reaches its maximum length or cannot spawn any further (hits an object, hits the edge of a cliff, etc). Natural Talent has no effect on this delay, only speeds up his stomping animation.

Also be sure to be standing on the ground when casting, and mashing 1 might delay you even further because hold the key for longer than 0.5~ secs shows the range indicator, which has to disappear first when you release the key again to cast Virulence.

[LSG501]

OK.. first impressions (note I'm still levelling)

Frame stats etc:  No real issue although I'm thinking maybe could do with more energy due to basically needing to spam 1 to get stacks. 

Passive: can't really complain about health regen or ability scaling with stacks etc...

Abilities:

1....  I would have like a little more 'fanning out' of the fungal growth, It kept seeming to miss my target even though I had aimed at it.  Either that or the hit box needs tweaking.  Also as said the fact it can't climb stairs or a step up is quite annoying.

2.... This seems to work well but I was kind of expecting it to 'plant itself' and then attack anything that comes near, what it seems to be doing is only attacking things immediately on impact ignoring anything that comes near....   Which if you miss the intended target makes the ability completely useless as it just shrivels up and dies.

Maybe a 'land mine' effect could be considered as an augment for nidus if a change isn't considered.  I'd also like the ability to cast it more than once at a time. 

3.... hmmm, now the ability itself is fine but it uses stacks.  The limit to one is understandable but I think I'd like the ability to link maybe a team mate AND an enemy and have both team members damage sent to the enemy but reduce it's efficiency from 50% to say 40% split between us. 

4.... no real issue with this either apart from needing to use stacks again.

As with a lot of frames casting times could have been a little quicker too....

 

Stacks:  I can live with the stacks mechanic except I feel the process in getting stacks could do with some work, my biggest issue with stacks is that the only way I can get stacks early on is via using the first ability, at best we can combine the first and second abilities to speed things up but that does require energy, which nidus doesn't have a lot of relative to some other frames) and they soon add up even with an efficiency type build.  The thing that gets me though is that the dev's have just done a rework on ash that took away the spamming of an ability and in a way this has added that same spamming of an ability as a requisite to using a warframes abilities....

What I would have liked to have seen is a mechanic where maybe using a weapon (maybe just melee perhaps or even a synergy with infested weapons, we do have a load) would add to the stacks too.  

 

Changing form:  I'd really like to see a gradual opening as you go through the stacks, at the very least a half open at 5 although I'd prefer every 2 stacks it does a small step open. 

 

 

edit: after some more time playing I think Nidus has the same issue that ash has when teamed with high level team mates (things like ember and it's wof or synoid simulor) in that they kill our enemies trapped via 2 before we get to kill them with our 1 so we can't get our stacks.... maybe 2 could get a similar thing to hydroids pilfering augment in that we still get the stack if it's killed while in the grasp of the tentacles.... it gets rather annoying trying to get our stacks and not getting them because the enemy got killed just before or as we trigger 1 wasting our energy and it also stops us from using Nidus to it's full potential.    Now this might improve as others learn about how nidus works but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

In solo play this isn't an issue but considering DE keep pushing us towards 'working together' this is a bit of an oversight in my opinion. 

Edited December 24, 2016 by LSG501

[YANJIUDING]

Nidus just became my favorite warframe aesthetically so far. Make his 2nd ability either recastable or pulls enemies wander into its range after casting, and he will be more than perfect. Currently that mass of tentacles refuse to disappear before either the timer expires or you kill every mobs that got caught by its tendrils. However there are many types of enemies that cannot be pulled towards it, so you need to find them and kill them one by one if you are using a high duration build, or tolerate losing your 2nd ability for like 15 secs. Or you can use a negative duration build to get a more vicious vortex, while making his 3 and 4 almost out of use. This seriously impede the experience playing with it. Please give Nidus more dexterous tentacles.

[Buttaface]

As a player who enjoys the space shooter elements of WF, I hate Nidus' visuals, their obnoxious effect on targeting for the rest of the team using ranged weapons, and will probably be dropping team in PUGs with one or more of them. Effectively, just like the equally obnoxious Army of the Dead Nekros, Tentacle Hydroid, some other frame powers, and to a lesser degree the aim-obstructing vortex spanning Mirage/Simulor, Nidus converts ~20% of the team's dps (maybe more) to its own with the obstructive graphics.

The introduction of Nidus is a broad, material nerf to all ranged weapons and those who enjoy them, SA rifles, and especially sniper rifles hit hardest with the massive nerf.

Edited December 24, 2016 by Buttaface

[(PSN)Iudex_Nemesis]

6 hours ago, Wargle said:

Corpus type weapons tear him down so fast its insane. particularly those technicians. theres a couple damage types in the orokin void that do it too.

Its nuts how quickly they evaporate his health compared with infested and grineer

The corpus can shred any frame regardless of their armor or health.

[(XBOX)Slimm qp ReapeR]

From what I've seen so far nidus is frame whose mechanically sound and balanced imo, with great scaling. I ask that DE plz, PLZ give Saryn that same scaling ability. They ability synergy is already there, just fine tune the scaling 

Edited December 24, 2016 by (XB1)Slimm qp ReapeR

[Chrysallismas]

Nidus is great and very well executed

 

Now they just need to give the same kind of "Alternate energy source" that rewards playing the character a certain way with free skill casts and scaling that he has to almost every other warframe so they can all have their uses on every mission.

 

[lethal-lemon]

I understand nidus was literally just released, however, i felt like during all the sneak peaks at him and still believe now that he's released that his little link ability (3) should b somehwat similar to trinity's link or nekros' shadows of the dead ability in a sense that tentacles shoot out from him (possibly 4) and latch on to the 4 closest enemies meaning ud hav to choose carefully where u stand before u cast to make sure  u get the most out of it, and those 4 tentacles latch onto those 4 enemies and damage is channeled out to them not all but a decent ammount and that damage thats channeled out is distributed equally among the 4 enemies, but like shadows of the dea AUG shield of shadows not only do these latched enemies take a nice bit of damage for u they fight for u instead of just standing there doing nothing. dont make them overly powerful, in my opinion dont even keep them at watever state they were at before u mutated them make them weaker, just so that they actually hav a use. its probably way way too early to ask for changes like this however maybe in future as a rework or even possibly an AUG mod. not only do i think his 3 could hav been better, but i do think his 2 should b recastable, not instantly of course but u should hav to wait 4 or 5 seconds depending on ur duration to b able to cast it again, i think 2 seconds is enough of a wait in my opinion maybe even 1.5 but make it like vaubans vortex ability in a sense that its like an expanding blob of infestation it sits or floats/hovers wherever u cast it and as enemies get close enough to it a tentacle shoots out latching onto it and sucking it in expanding on the size of this blob. just some ideas i fell like would improve upon nidus i do however love him he has become my new favourite frame over taking loki and nekros. u guys did a solid job on him !

[lethal-lemon]

7 hours ago, (PS4)Snakeboy1990 said:

The corpus can shred any frame regardless of their armor or health.

thats fact XD

[KuramaKitsune]

fyi, if you link with the 3rd power, when you shoot a tendril with 1 the linked person also shoots a tendril in the same direction. works with other players too

[Rioma]

NIdus is fine. in low levels he is basically useless in a group since anybody can kill low level enemies with ease leaving him with not much enemies to spam 1 on. The only missions types he really excels at are ones where you need to guard an area for some time like excavation or defense. I guess if you wanted to you could use him for survival or intereception. Basically if enemies get scale up and give him time to scale his stacks up he becomes useful. Also his gameplay is a bit repetitive. I wonder how many times i pressed 1 while putting my 3 forma on him.

 

If DE were to change anything about him maybe his max amount of stacks he can have? Getting to 100 takes quite some time, but you get very good benefits from it. There is a certain point (maybe @ around 20 stacks?) where your stacks no longer matter and you can use your 3,4 as much as you want and you're only getting more stacks to be stronger. Past that mark there is almost no risk to what you do since you get undying mode.

 

Perhaps they could make the max amount of stacks you can have on Nidus like 15-20. Make the stack counter easy to fill up at low stacks so he can get rolling a bit easier, but to scale up to higher stack counts say past 10 you need more 1 hits to get more stacks. Like from 0 stacks to 3 stacks you need 3 or 4 hits per stacks. But once you get to say 10 stacks going to 11 stacks you would need like 12? Because like i said above once you get past 20 stacks your gameplay basically has no risk anymore.

 

Even without that change I think he fine where he is at the moment.

[Darkmoone1]

I honestly even think he's fine for fast missions such as capture as well because it's more about dealing damage with the weapons while CC'ing them with abilities. As it turns out, Nidus has one of the best abilities to group enemies together with an ability that only requires one full stack for him to go tank mode. On top of that, he came with a nice melee weapon polorized with a stance that can hit multiple enemies at time with single strikes.

I think he's sorely underestimated in fast missions. 

Edited December 25, 2016 by Darkmoone1

[Death_Master_]

Nidus is good but has some problems:

1) Stacks cap is too low(not enough to kill fast enough after 40 min at derelict survival)

2) Armor scaling cap is very low(with such health pool an ancient can one-shot him making 10 stacks lost, better will be to let armor scale with every stack)

3) Healing rate does not increase with stacks(mobs and their damage do scale, attack power does scale but regen does not scale at all)

4) Grass patch does not protect from knockdowns meaning ancients will drag you everywhere all the time.

[Airwolfen]

52 minutes ago, Death_Master_ said:

Nidus is good but has some problems:

1) Stacks cap is too low(not enough to kill fast enough after 40 min at derelict survival)

2) Armor scaling cap is very low(with such health pool an ancient can one-shot him making 10 stacks lost, better will be to let armor scale with every stack)

3) Healing rate does not increase with stacks(mobs and their damage do scale, attack power does scale but regen does not scale at all)

4) Grass patch does not protect from knockdowns meaning ancients will drag you everywhere all the time.

Largest part of your survivability comes from skill 3 when linking to an enemy. it is the 90% mitigation + the regen that makes him so tanky. not his health pool and armor alone.

[Gentrash]

Just want to stop in and say he is a really great frame. 

No complaints.

Great work DE!

[R34LM]

I have to say I am very pleased with Nidus. His abilities synergize very well with each other and the abilities at base are solid.

 

I'm just going to point out a couple of weaknesses in the event people are wondering.

1. Nidus relies on building stacks, which means he needs enemies to build them. Weak enemies or enemies killed by others doesn't help in that event, which can also mean you won't get energy back from his 1 for repeated uses. His stacks are only there when you need them. In higher levels, you can just tangle enemies up and spam them with 1 until you are ready, so he's set for high level, but be sure to build them right away.

 

2. As some have noticed, Nidus is susceptible to high dps enemies like gunners and corpus tech. Spikes of damage, such as bombards or snipers, will have a hard time since Nidus can regenerate the health before the next shot. Don't leave high dps enemies around to shoot you; it may catch you off guard that they can hose you down. However, if you have stacks around, you can adapt in the situation in enough time.

[Kinnexx]

I'd like to take the time to thank the developers responsible for Nidus.  He is both fun, and effective.  I really enjoy playing him overall.  I've mostly been playing a high power build (296% strength, 100% range, 85% efficiency, 103% duration).  In my experience thus far, Nidus scales very well with Power Strength.  He can do some massive regen that Oberon can only dream of. (I've hit 103/s so far while tethered to another player.)  His damage is great and seems to scale to a level similar to my melee weapons, secura lecta and telos boltace, dropping off when enemies hit level ~200 ish.  [Not sure exactly, since by that time I am using melee.]

He actually has me interested in the idea of using the Cephalon Simaris mods for testing out just how much armor you can get -- or power strength.  How high can I make that regen go?!  How long can I last using regen / high armor alone -- without the Naromon cheese.  How long can I last with Unairu!?  Fun fun things to try.

That said here are a few notes about the abilities.

1. Virulence - love it, except for the energy cost which hurts, admittedly my build is slightly at fault for that though.  It does make it difficult to get stacks initially at times.  You really need a lot of enemies, and that means party members that understand the giant ball of enemies are for you to NOMNOMNOM and not for them to kill for you.
2. Larva - either scale duration inversely so higher duration lets you cast more -- or make the tentacles do something after the initial duration.  Knock downs, more pulls, tentacle face slaps that both humiliate enemies and build mutation stacks.  I kinda of like the last one, for players that don't want to always spam 1, and to allow for more play style choices.  High duration with 2 / 4 would be interesting with that change.
3. Parasitic Link - Nullifiers, I hate you.     That is all.  [Mod idea -- leech energy from enemies, and share your stack armor bonus with allies.]
4. Ravenous - Somewhat inconsistent at generating stacks.  Can generate more than it costs, break even, or lose stacks overall.  I love the regen from this, and how it scales with power strength.  As other have noted, a way to turn down the effects from this would be nice; it looks fantastic, but can be overwhelming.  Especially with multiple players.
5. Passive - really great passive.

I'd like to see something for generating stacks in a different way.  Something that works better in groups, because you run out of energy very quickly when everything dies just before you hit it.  Also note, a way to see a players stacks would help too -- so you can coordinate with your ally Nidus' better.

Really, only Larva feels like its missing something.  Everything else is really great.

[LSG501]

Having spent more time with Nidus I've decided from my own experiences with public groups that something really needs to be done to deal with the way that things like ember's wof prevent nidus from getting stacks.  I mentioned it earlier and having played more of him losing out on stacks due to wof (or similar) killing everything, even those I've tried to group together with 2, due to it's press 4 to win approach means that the stacks system makes nidus' abilities which rely on stacks really hard to get to, especially in the lower levels.  

DE, if you want us to make use of stacks as a new gaming mechanic you need to make it so we can actually get our stacks when put in groups with weapons and warframes that can steel our kills before we get a chance to use an ability that grants us the stack.  Either that or wof needs a massive nerf, you 'changed' ash so it wasn't press 4 to win yet ember is still left with it's ability to basically nuke the entire level as they're running through. 

This problem with not gaining stacks is actually making me not want to use nidus in group missions even though I actually do like him as he stands now (although I would like changes I mentioned earlier).  Why would I want to use a frame where I can't use 2 of my abilities because I can't get enough stacks, when every other frame has access to all 4 abilities ALL the time. 

 

edit rather than a new post: purely a visual thing... can the larva/maggots (they're still purple if you look closely) take on our colour scheme rather than the current purple, I know it might be a bit harder with the coding etc but if 4's ground infestation can take on our energy colour etc I don't see why the rest of nidus kit should do the same. 

Edited December 26, 2016 by LSG501

[Loupy]

On 12/24/2016 at 11:10 AM, Wargle said:

Corpus type weapons tear him down so fast its insane. particularly those technicians. theres a couple damage types in the orokin void that do it too.

Its nuts how quickly they evaporate his health compared with infested and grineer

The Corpus Techs' rate of fire has been bugged since the TWW came out and even low level Corpus Techs shred Warframes in a second with their brokenly high rate of fire.

[KesslerCOIL]

Mechanically he's just about perfect, however  
You should still gain stacks when a maggot attachs to an enemy and an ally finishes it off, currently if your squad plays too efficiently you cant get stacks from his 4.  
Another change id like to see is the maggots taking on your energy colour.