Only I think zephyr needs a rework or at least some quality of life improvements?

[Shining_Darkness]

She a very unsynergetic and annoying set to use in my opinion...

Low gravity makes her feel slow and clunky...

Why all her spells do non-existant damage?

Why all abilities are two-handed? It kinda ruins the momentum and fast playstyle she is supposed to have by constantly mini-stunning her.

Why her first ability does a pointless bullet jump up if you're on the ground? Why cant it simply push you into direction you want right away?

Why does divebomb stun you for 0.5 second when you land and has such tiny aoe?

Why is her shield is 100 times worse version of Mesas shield (lasts less time, making it more annoying to recast, doesnt reflect damage back, gets hit by explosions that 1 shot zephyr, doesnt reduce melle damage, cant be cast while reloading weapons, has higher cast time than Mesas shield)

Why her tornadoes are so random and unreliable? Why they do such low damage?

Why we cant change all tornado damage types by hitting one of them?

And most importantly... Why she can't fly? xD

Edited December 25, 2016 by Shining_Darkness

[Hikaru-san]

Zephyr at the moment is a good warframe, I don't think it need a reworks yet.

Her shield with the 'Jet Stream' augment is extremely good, you're invincible, no projectiles can't hit you.

I don't think her tornadoes are made for damage, it's a CC power, and actually, it deals a lot of environnemental damage, in a tileset based on a grineer / corpus ship, the tornadoes can crush the ennemies on the walls, it one shot them.

Her divebomb with enough range can CC a really large area.

And finally, Zephyr doesn't fly, she just float, she doesn't need an archwing system like Titania, there's no need to fly in a small tileset, boosted bulletjump are enough.

[K4n0_]

32 minutes ago, Shining_Darkness said:

She a very unsynergetic and annoying set to use in my opinion...

Low gravity makes her feel slow and clunky...

Why all her spells do non-existant damage?

Why her first ability does a pointless bullet jump up if you're on the ground? Why cant it simply push you into direction you want right away?

Why does divebomb stun you for 0.5 second when you land and has such tiny aoe?

Why is shatter shieldz is 100 times worse version of Mesas shield (doesnt reflect damage back, gets hit by explosions that 1 shot zephyr, doesnt reduce melle damage, cant be cast while reloading weapons, has higher cast time than Mesas shield)

Why her tornadoes are so random and unreliable? Why they do such low damage?

And most importantly... Why she can't fly? xD

Well, I'm going to say things one by one.

• Yeah, I can't argue with that. It's definitely something that makes me uncomfortable too.
• Not all Warframes do damage. Check Vauban, for instance. His objective is way more Crowd-Control focused.
• Well, that's the skill. Throw you in the air. It's something I'd definitely ask to work on. It's pretty useless considering bulet jump, and is limited to open-ground places where any other frame would excel. Zephyr is a fun-frame.
• Dive Bomb is a interesting concept, though it is badly applied. However, mods can help you.
• As Hikaru-san said, you can use the augment for it.
• Her tornadoes are for CC actually.
• Because she's not a bird? She's kind of a gliding bird. Titania is a fairy, which means she can fly. Not her.

I do think a rework is something DE could think about. But there are bigger issues on the list of not so used Warframes.

Like Oberon.

We don't talk about Oberon.

[BiancaRoughfin]

"She a very unsynergetic and annoying set to use in my opinion..."
Only Issue i see with her skills is that her DiveBomb should be incorporated into the Tailwind skill so when Airborn and aiming down, using the skill you would trigger DiveBomb.

"Low gravity makes her feel slow and clunky..."
I dont think it that way. I only have issues in stages that naturally have reduced gravity as it sums up with her passive and makes it really hard to move around since a small jump sends you far higher.

"Why all her spells do non-existant damage?"
I dont see a need to. She is a Mobility/Utility frame. Her Skill 2 knocks down enemies in an area, her Skill 3 protects her and allies in a area without sacrificing mobility or forcing you to idle around to benefit from it, her 4 skill pins enemies to the ceiling and throws others to the sides forcing them to move into position again before attacking or throwing them to some place in the map that instantly kills them.

"Why her first ability does a pointless bullet jump up if you're on the ground? Why cant it simply push you into direction you want right away?"
It only pushes you up if your on the ground, when cast in mid-air it will push you in the direction your aiming.

"Why does divebomb stun you for 0.5 second when you land and has such tiny aoe?"
It triggers the same animation from dropping from high places on your warframe and as for the AoE, it has to depend on Range mods abit, also the skill can be combined with Heavy Impact mod it can do alot more damage.

"Why is shatter shieldz is 100 times worse version of Mesas shield (doesnt reflect damage back, gets hit by explosions that 1 shot zephyr, doesnt reduce melle damage, cant be cast while reloading weapons, has higher cast time than Mesas shield)"
I believe you ment Turbulence? Mesa's shield only affects her self which doesnt put her into a supportive position in a group wile Zephyr's Turbulence redirects projectiles that move into an area around her, protecting her self, her teammates and mission objectives. Its like a Snowglobe that is not limited to the area you cast it, that follows you around and doesnt prevent allies from shooting through it.

"Why her tornadoes are so random and unreliable? Why they do such low damage?"
Again, their not ment to actually do damage but instead crowd control and apply status to enemies they pick up, thats why their element can be changed by shooting them.

"And most importantly... Why she can't fly? xD"
Archwings didnt exist when she was made for a mechanic like Titania's ult to be made. Her mobility and ability to launch her self very far away was enough to consider her flyable tho she no longer meets those standards in the game's current version with all that has been implemented.

Edited December 24, 2016 by BiancaRoughfin

[yles9056]

Zephyr needs an update, not necessarily a rework.

I'm fine with Zephyr having little damage, but I'm not happy with her 1st and 2nd abilities.

-Tailwind's problem is mentioned thousands of times. It is hard to control compared to bullet jump. Many missions do not take place in open space. She hits walls, terrain and obstacles a lot. She needs to know when to stop. The vertical jump is also a problem. Zephyr either flies over the height limit or bumps into the ceiling.

-Dive Bomb's range is pretty small. It wouldn't be that bad if Zephry could change the direction she dives a bit. And sure you can spam this ability, but if a CC ability needs to be spammed to be useful, that's not ok IMO.

 

I accept the fact that Zephyr is not meant to fly, but she should at least be more maneuverable in air. But she's not. That's what bothers me.

Edited December 24, 2016 by yles9056

[(PSN)ZeroTearsKris]

I feel like her tornado's could be more controllable like antimatter drop on nova to make them feel more reliable in throwing the enemies, not really to much of a buff on damage but enemies have gotten a bit stronger, such as  the guardians from the war within so maybe a tiny bit more damage.With turbulence you can use the augment for it like the other person was saying. With the dive bomb it doesnt reach nor does it do the damage, for the current version, infested swarm you without any worry because it doesn't reach, corpus have the nullifiers everywhere along with the supras the dive bomb can't do anything in these types of situations not counting the bursas making it useless with the time needed to recover the enemies have more already on you.I think the dive bomb needs to be a bit more useful, and as far as her passive and first ability goes her first ability throws you up in the air if on ground, if in air throws you in another direction.Like the other guy was saying dive bomb could be worked into this but her first ability needs a rework the only time you need to fly that high is in the mstery rank tests it also doesn't do anything to enemies around you this ability I feel could be the bullet jump for her while making room for something else the aero category.Meanwhile with her passive she does feel slow, it needs to be updated to current game standards you jump your stuck in mid air waiting to be shot yes you could try turbulence, but what if there's not enough time or it runs out then there's nothing you can do except dive bomb, but that's a waste of energy.I know they didn't have the knowledge they have now with scripting and im not saying that it was wrong for them to do all I'm saying is that it needs an update.

[xRufus7x]

Most people think Zephyr needs some love. Most people also think Limbo needs one more though. I am fairly confident that she is on the short list.

[Cat__Nap]

Turbulence has nothing wrong with it. It's an incredibly strong skill to begin with, even more so with the augment. It doesn't need a change. Yes, you can get hit by a bomb if it explodes near you, but you're pretty much invincible otherwise except for at really, really high levels.

Tailwind is a neat mechanic, and shines on maps that have open or high skyboxes with minimal clutter, but it's very outdated now with a lot of missions either taking place in tiny tunnels with low ceilings, or rooms that just have too much environmental clutter to use the skill at all (coughinfestedships). It does need a rework, and Titania's flying mechanics show that it's possible to give archwing-esque controls to a warframe. I wouldn't want it to turn into a perma-fly skill, but maybe an archwing speed boost with a bit of extra maneuverability would keep the fun factor of the skill while adding some QoL.

Huenado and Dive Bomb are pretty useless and a lot of players have been asking for changes to these for years now. All we can hope for is that a zephyr revamp is in the works in the (distant) future.

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

Hi there, really, really long term Zephyr lover here, nice to see somebody new. I'm also very, very present in a lot of Zephyr threads here over the last few months, so there's a lot I can sum up for you about the topics we've talked about.

To answer your thread's topic, no, we've been talking about a full Zephyr rework, fixes, changes and updates for the better part of a year now here. There's loads of threads, and quite a few ways people want to go about helping out our gliding frame.

So let's look at your points:

10 hours ago, Shining_Darkness said:

She a very unsynergetic and annoying set to use in my opinion...

Thanks for your opinion, I find that the kit is very synergistic myself; press 1 to go up, press 2 to come down with effort, press 3 to ignore ranged damage while you run around with shotguns, snipers, melee, anything you feel like and make mincemeat out of enemies, press 4 to emergency CC a wide area of the map.

What her kit is, to me, is under-powered. Or, more specifically, it attempts to do things and doesn't achieve them. Her 1, for example, does exactly what it says on the tin. Her 2, on the other hand... not so much, it's unreliable CC with a small range and the damage is only 'okay' if you get decent height. The two abilites work well together, but honestly speaking it's easier to just stick on Heavy Impact in your mod setup and use 2 to activate the effect of that instead of trying to use the base ability.

I'll get to more of this later.

10 hours ago, Shining_Darkness said:

Low gravity makes her feel slow and clunky...

Doesn't to me, again, the opinion is appreciated, but others don't agree. To me it makes her feel light and mobile, I actually regret coming back to other frames because they don't move the same way, in fact, if there was a way to describe her movement, again for me, it would be deliberate and graceful.

10 hours ago, Shining_Darkness said:

Why all her spells do non-existant damage?

Because she's not a damage frame, she never has been a damage frame, that's not what she's designed for.

10 hours ago, Shining_Darkness said:

Why all abilities are two-handed? It kinda ruins the momentum and fast playstyle she is supposed to have by constantly mini-stunning her.

Good point, but that's because she's an old frame. Most of the older frames have had updates to allow the more frequently cast abilities to be cast while moving, or one-handed. Zephyr has not had this update yet, and may even not need it as all of her abilities can be cast in the air, you don't have to stand still to cast them.

10 hours ago, Shining_Darkness said:

Why her first ability does a pointless bullet jump up if you're on the ground? Why cant it simply push you into direction you want right away?

Because it was designed as a 'launch' to synergise with her Dive Bomb. The 'pointless bullet jump' as you call it was designed long before a bullet jump existed in game, it may, in fact, be changed later, but the base movement of this ability is not a bad thing in terms of game-play since it's a radial stagger on all enemies it effects to allow you to escape. It just needs to a better function to the radius of effect when you launch.

Directional launch may be an option for a rework though, don't count it out.

10 hours ago, Shining_Darkness said:

Why does divebomb stun you for 0.5 second when you land and has such tiny aoe?

Because it's supposed to knock down all enemies around you and the 'recovery' animation is supposed to be the balance to that. However, since the knock down doesn't work as intended, the recovery is a bad thing. If the radial knock down were fixed and reliable, the half-second recovery animation wouldn't be a bad thing.

10 hours ago, Shining_Darkness said:

Why is shatter shieldz is 100 times worse version of Mesas shield (doesnt reflect damage back, gets hit by explosions that 1 shot zephyr, doesnt reduce melle damage, cant be cast while reloading weapons, has higher cast time than Mesas shield)

I think what you're asking is 'why is Shatter Shield better than Turbulence, since Shatter Shield reflects damage back and is a one-handed animation'. To answer that, you have to understand that there is a difference between an ability, Shatter Shield, that reduces 95% of damage taken (at max), and reflects a smaller percentage of damage back at enemies, and an ability like Turbulence that is literal invulnerability to ranged damage.

Turbulence has draw-backs, like no melee damage reduction and a slower casting time, it is also completely ineffective against aura and AOE damage if you're in range of those. However, it is total and complete, 100% damage prevention to your warframe from all projectile and beam weapons.

Shatter Shield has draw-backs, it lasts less time, it only reduces 95% of damage taken, and it cannot be activated while your 4th ability is active, it also falls quite short on the 'damage reflection' aspect, as enemies are usually resistant to their own damage types, and units like Grineer have armour, which reduces damage even further, meaning that at level 140 a Grineer Heavy Gunner can kill Mesa in about five or six seconds through her Shatter Shield, while at level 999 the same Heavy Gunner cannot kill Zephyr for the entire duration of Turbulence unless she gets into range of the Gunner's ground slam attack.

When you count in Zephyr's high mobility and instant escape from trouble using 1, Zephyr can basically evade and avoid all damage for the duration.

Quite simply, Turbulence is one of the most balanced, but complete protection abilities in the game. I did test once in a long run survival, Zephyr's 45 second Turbulence actually lasted longer than Rhino's Iron Skin once you pass level 100 enemies.

10 hours ago, Shining_Darkness said:

Why her tornadoes are so random and unreliable? Why they do such low damage?

This, now this is a very good question. Why is Tornado so unreliable and random? I know why it does low damage; it's because it's a crowd-control ability, not a damage ability, like Vortex. But the unreliability? That's just one of its flaws.

Tornado wanders off, it's slow, it has bad target tracking, you cannot shoot through the funnels to kill enemies on the other side, even though they can shoot you, it scatters surviving enemies and loot all over to annoy your team, and it doesn't even control enemies for a reliable amount of time. It's chaos. And the worst offense? No off switch. You can't de-cast it like you can with other long-duration abilities.

There's plenty to say about Tornado, but again, I'll get onto that in a bit.

11 hours ago, Shining_Darkness said:

And most importantly... Why she can't fly? xD

Because we've seen flying. I've used Titania for tens of hours now, and... quite frankly, flying would be the death of Zephyr entirely. Zephyr doesn't hover. Zephyr doesn't drift about a few inches off the ground. Zephyr is mobile, and Titania's flying is not mobile.

Titania literally has to shrink down to prevent herself smacking into scenery, she can't pick things up that way, and she can't use her regular weapons and has to use an Exalted mode instead. She has an energy drain on it that would kill Zephyr thanks to her low energy pool, and worse than that Titania's flying speed is only about the same as regular sprinting speed.

Put Zephyr and Titania in any tile set and mark a point on the map, Zephyr will get there first. Any height, any distance, any tile. The only thing Titania can do that Zephyr can't is hover in mid-air, and that's pointless.

I will state, with absolute confidence, that I can do anything a flying Zephyr could do the same or better with a non-flying Zephyr.

So... that said and done

How could we actually fix Zephyr?

It's a big question. But here's a couple of things to consider:

First: DE don't remove abilities when they can be fixed. Look at their history, the only ability to ever be completely removed from the game is Super Jump for Excalibur, because that was literally worse than Bullet Jump. Everything else is the same ability with a tweaked, buffed or additional effect.

Second: Zephyr's kit nearly, nearly works now. You just have to remember that she's not a damage frame. She's evasion, defense and CC. If we can bring back her CC and make that Defense better? We'll have done something superb.

Third: Mechanical fixes are always better than a new ability that isn't fully tested.

So here's a few fixes, just to get us started:

Spoiler

Passive: Low Gravity. Feels a little slow, but that's because it's low gravity. Why not add more interactions with other parts of the game? A big problem for Zephyr is people keep comparing her stuff to Parkour Bullet Jumping, and that's because it's an 'either/or' choice, you have no interactions.

Fix: Allow her Low Gravity to help with Aim Glide, Wall Latch and Wall Run, moving her further, faster, and letting her steer Aim Glide (just like she can steer in the air normally).

Tailwind: This one, as you've noticed, does very, very little to the enemy. Now, Zephyr is not a damage frame, so a buff to damage won't do much. The problem from above is still here, since why should you Tailwind when you can just Bullet Jump and not waste energy, afterall? And there's also a 'gravity reset' bug after you cast it, meaning you fall at increased speed after Tailwind.

Fixes: First, let's give the player that reason to cast it at enemies, rather than just away from them: A knock-down, possibly a ragdoll of enemies you pass through, sound good? This way you can escape from narrow corridors packed with enemies. Second, we'll fix the parkour thing by first making it possible to use the parkour movement straight from Tailwind; when you're scraping along a wall you can hold Jump to make it a wall run, or hold Aim to make it a wall latch, likewise if you're just butting your head against a wall, same applies there, and if you're on a wall you can cast Tailwind as if you were in the air to move where you want.

Dive Bomb: Bad because it doesn't affect all the enemies you hit, and it has a tiny range. There's also nothing you can do on the ground, and it does pitiful damage. Why doesn't it affect all the enemies? Because Knock Down is something that can't be triggered if the enemy is doing an animation that has 'momentum', much like swinging a heavy sword means that sometimes you can't be knocked down, enemies have those kinds of animation too. Why is it low-range for a CC ability (a base of 6m, maximum of 17m, radius? When all, every other, CC ability starts with a base of 20?), maybe because it only costs 25 energy, so DE rates it along the lines of Sonic Boom; cheap but only for that small area of effect.

Fix: Make the knock down an animation. Like the spin from Rhino Stomp, but at normal speed. Everything in the radius, regardless of what it's doing, will be knocked down that way, and DE can make the animation last long enough that the recovery animation for Zephyr is mitigated. Another suggestion is to up the base range from 6m to 10m, so that modding for Range would allow it to reach 25m. The best suggestion I've heard is to make the range scale with height, like the damage scales, up to an extra 90%; why? Because using this method a max-range modded Zephyr would be able to reach 30m radius just using her existing ability. But those are ideas, they could work. The most important thing is to make that knock down effect reliable.

Turbulence: To most, an overwhelming amount of Zephyr players, this only needs one fix, fix the few things it doesn't deflect. Currently it doesn't deflect Flamethrowers, Hellion Rockets, or Comba Swarmer Detron shots. Flamethrowers are the most important as Scorch and Hyekka Master units scale in such a broken manner that it's not funny. There doesn't seem to be a reason why these things aren't negated by Turbulence, it's straight up weird.

Tornado... Now this needs an overhaul. Let's do that in the next batch.

Okay, so those are fixes. And, funnily enough, that would make the abilities she has work really well. Who wouldn't want the instant ability to knock down every enemy within 17m of them? Regardless of the damage, that's a good cast for 25 energy. Tailwind actually having tie-ins with the movement system? Why wouldn't that be a good thing?

But now, here we go, now we make the abilities more viable.

We add to existing ones, and then overhaul the one ability that doesn't work at all (Tornado).

Spoiler

Tailwind: The additions to this are simple; let us extend the range by holding down the button. If there's a line of enemies we want to knock down, we don't want to have to jog over, jump, and then blast them, only to get half-way down the corridor and stop. We want to target them, hold the throttle open and blast through the buggers at full speed. The extension would cost energy, and there would be limited movement (literally just a slight steer so you could aim a little better, not full pulling donuts in a bombard's face), but this would be a great first ability addition.

Dive Bomb: Under hot debate is giving Dive Bomb a ground attack. Imagine a quick wind-up animation and a quick leap forward, slamming a cone-of-effect wind forward to knock down enemies. Low damage, fast CC. The balance is that the range of the ability is the same as the radius of the dive ability, it's not a one-handed animation so you can't reload, and the damage is vastly reduced, it's literally just a knock down.

The inspiration for this is the original Zephyr concept thread that DE approved from the forums and said they were using in the game. The optional ability that wasn't included was... well, think of Nidus and his 1, except with knock down instead of infested growths and damage. So it wouldn't be all that hard to do, just an animation thing.

Tornado: Now this I could write a book on.

So many suggestions, so many change ideas, and so many different concepts. And do you know what? The best answer I've heard to the Tornado problem is this:

First, make the cast have a range from the point of cast. The tornado funnels roam from the original point (they still spawn on enemies if they're in range) up to the limit of that range, it is affected by range mods.

Second, use that range to make the funnels better. Inside the range the funnels now move faster, a little faster than running speed on a grineer, travel along the Nav-Mesh (the one the enemies use to navigate levels) so they will always be where enemies walk, not on top of rocks or off in the corner, and the seeking function triggers the moment an enemy enters the range of the cast (so any enemy stepping into the ability radius is targeted and captured by a funnel in a few seconds). Funnels still have an area of effect, so if they happen to be at the edge of the range, they can actually pick up enemies from outside it, accidentally almost. More fixes include the capture time: Enemies are captured and held by a funnel for a minimum of ten seconds (maybe that's a fixed duration) so that you reliably deal the capture damage, plus ten ticks of damage over time and have ten chances to proc the elemental status. The scattering of survivors and loot? Fix that by releasing enemies straight up out of the funnels, the funnel cannot pick them up again until they touch the ground, so no more sticking enemies to the ceilings in low tiles, they fall and can be re-captured again. In general? This is a way better function for the funnels all-round.

Third, let's bring in that off switch. So the ability has a duration, but you can press 4 again to turn it off before the end of the duration in order to cast it again somewhere else.

And guess what? Tornado is now a Defense CC ability. It's a half-way ability between Vauban's Vortex, with the permanent capture, low damage and multiple casts, and Hydroid's Tentacle Swarm, with the Finisher damage, instant recast, field of effect affected by range function.

Tornado now can be cast on a defense point and it will patrol the area actively, never wander off, any enemy coming into range will be immediately captured and held for ten seconds, then ragdolled skywards (unless there's a roof, then they're dropped once the momentum wears off), and best of all? You can change the elemental type of the ability to make it proc Viral, Fire or Corrosive regularly, reliably. 

You can even add synergy by saying that Tailwind through a funnel causes double damage to all enemies inside. There's all sorts of possibilities for that kind of thing. Somebody suggested that Aim Glide through a funnel should boost players up in the air for longer glides ^^

Most importantly for the sake of re-working it uses all the same assets the game already uses, it requires minimal programming changes, and voila! A fully functioning Tornado that Zephyr can cast, move independently of, and turn off again whenever she needs it.

So, what do you think?

Zephyr, the highly mobile CC and Defense frame. All abilities acting as they were meant to on design, better than ever, and with no new abilities needed to muck up the original theme.

Does that cover all the things you could think of? Does that give you ideas? Thoughts?

Let me know if I've managed to sway you over, or not, I like hearing feedback about this wall-of-text dumps I do.

[K4n0_]

First of all, great points there, Thaylien. Good to see you're present in most of those discussions, that's nice.

Quote

 

Passive: Low Gravity. Feels a little slow, but that's because it's low gravity. Why not add more interactions with other parts of the game? A big problem for Zephyr is people keep comparing her stuff to Parkour Bullet Jumping, and that's because it's an 'either/or' choice, you have no interactions.

Fix: Allow her Low Gravity to help with Aim Glide, Wall Latch and Wall Run, moving her further, faster, and letting her steer Aim Glide (just like she can steer in the air normally). 

 

We could actually make her more mobile by increasing the time for Aim Glide, Wall Latch, Wall Run and increase movement while in air. Not same movement, but even faster. And make her hard to hit.

4 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Tailwind: This one, as you've noticed, does very, very little to the enemy. Now, Zephyr is not a damage frame, so a buff to damage won't do much. The problem from above is still here, since why should you Tailwind when you can just Bullet Jump and not waste energy, afterall? And there's also a 'gravity reset' bug after you cast it, meaning you fall at increased speed after Tailwind.

Fixes: First, let's give the player that reason to cast it at enemies, rather than just away from them: A knock-down, possibly a ragdoll of enemies you pass through, sound good? This way you can escape from narrow corridors packed with enemies. Second, we'll fix the parkour thing by first making it possible to use the parkour movement straight from Tailwind; when you're scraping along a wall you can hold Jump to make it a wall run, or hold Aim to make it a wall latch, likewise if you're just butting your head against a wall, same applies there, and if you're on a wall you can cast Tailwind as if you were in the air to move where you want.

Now, I'd rather see a flying Zephyr. Give Tailwind the power to free roaming in the map (no clipping, of course), for the same period Tailwind is activated currently. Fusing with your idea, a "temporary Turbulence" would be activated, to execute the ragdoll you mentioned.

4 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Dive Bomb: Bad because it doesn't affect all the enemies you hit, and it has a tiny range. There's also nothing you can do on the ground, and it does pitiful damage. Why doesn't it affect all the enemies? Because Knock Down is something that can't be triggered if the enemy is doing an animation that has 'momentum', much like swinging a heavy sword means that sometimes you can't be knocked down, enemies have those kinds of animation too. Why is it low-range for a CC ability (a base of 6m, maximum of 17m, radius? When all, every other, CC ability starts with a base of 20?), maybe because it only costs 25 energy, so DE rates it along the lines of Sonic Boom; cheap but only for that small area of effect.

Fix: Make the knock down an animation. Like the spin from Rhino Stomp, but at normal speed. Everything in the radius, regardless of what it's doing, will be knocked down that way, and DE can make the animation last long enough that the recovery animation for Zephyr is mitigated. Another suggestion is to up the base range from 6m to 10m, so that modding for Range would allow it to reach 25m. The best suggestion I've heard is to make the range scale with height, like the damage scales, up to an extra 90%; why? Because using this method a max-range modded Zephyr would be able to reach 30m radius just using her existing ability. But those are ideas, they could work. The most important thing is to make that knock down effect reliable.

I don't think inserting the knock-down animation would fix. Dive-Bomb could be redirected to any direction (even walls!). The range scale is a great addition. Maybe changing the way 'momentum' works would do the trick, actually. Her skill specifically could interrupt them.

4 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Turbulence: To most, an overwhelming amount of Zephyr players, this only needs one fix, fix the few things it doesn't deflect. Currently it doesn't deflect Flamethrowers, Hellion Rockets, or Comba Swarmer Detron shots. Flamethrowers are the most important as Scorch and Hyekka Master units scale in such a broken manner that it's not funny. There doesn't seem to be a reason why these things aren't negated by Turbulence, it's straight up weird.

DE's focusing on other things by now, and Oberon and Zephyr are in the drawer by now. There's not enough a Zephyr player base to state their discomfort, so there's also that.
Now to the additions:

4 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Tailwind: The additions to this are simple; let us extend the range by holding down the button. If there's a line of enemies we want to knock down, we don't want to have to jog over, jump, and then blast them, only to get half-way down the corridor and stop. We want to target them, hold the throttle open and blast through the buggers at full speed. The extension would cost energy, and there would be limited movement (literally just a slight steer so you could aim a little better, not full pulling donuts in a bombard's face), but this would be a great first ability addition.

Maybe just changing it to a channeling ability is an option, too. Channeling would increase speed at cost of energy (kind of like Inaros' OP bugs armor).

Applying to my addition, it would just accelerate by channeling the skill at free roam.

4 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Dive Bomb: Under hot debate is giving Dive Bomb a ground attack. Imagine a quick wind-up animation and a quick leap forward, slamming a cone-of-effect wind forward to knock down enemies. Low damage, fast CC. The balance is that the range of the ability is the same as the radius of the dive ability, it's not a one-handed animation so you can't reload, and the damage is vastly reduced, it's literally just a knock down.

The inspiration for this is the original Zephyr concept thread that DE approved from the forums and said they were using in the game. The optional ability that wasn't included was... well, think of Nidus and his 1, except with knock down instead of infested growths and damage. So it wouldn't be all that hard to do, just an animation thing.

That's actually great. Like Banshee's 1, right? It's all about animation. But without changing the animation, they would just recycle the Banshee ability, which could be seem as quite a rip-off.

4 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Tornado: Now this I could write a book on.

So many suggestions, so many change ideas, and so many different concepts. And do you know what? The best answer I've heard to the Tornado problem is this:

First, make the cast have a range from the point of cast. The tornado funnels roam from the original point (they still spawn on enemies if they're in range) up to the limit of that range, it is affected by range mods.

Second, use that range to make the funnels better. Inside the range the funnels now move faster, a little faster than running speed on a grineer, travel along the Nav-Mesh (the one the enemies use to navigate levels) so they will always be where enemies walk, not on top of rocks or off in the corner, and the seeking function triggers the moment an enemy enters the range of the cast (so any enemy stepping into the ability radius is targeted and captured by a funnel in a few seconds). Funnels still have an area of effect, so if they happen to be at the edge of the range, they can actually pick up enemies from outside it, accidentally almost. More fixes include the capture time: Enemies are captured and held by a funnel for a minimum of ten seconds (maybe that's a fixed duration) so that you reliably deal the capture damage, plus ten ticks of damage over time and have ten chances to proc the elemental status. The scattering of survivors and loot? Fix that by releasing enemies straight up out of the funnels, the funnel cannot pick them up again until they touch the ground, so no more sticking enemies to the ceilings in low tiles, they fall and can be re-captured again. In general? This is a way better function for the funnels all-round.

Third, let's bring in that off switch. So the ability has a duration, but you can press 4 again to turn it off before the end of the duration in order to cast it again somewhere else.

And guess what? Tornado is now a Defense CC ability. It's a half-way ability between Vauban's Vortex, with the permanent capture, low damage and multiple casts, and Hydroid's Tentacle Swarm, with the Finisher damage, instant recast, field of effect affected by range function.

Tornado now can be cast on a defense point and it will patrol the area actively, never wander off, any enemy coming into range will be immediately captured and held for ten seconds, then ragdolled skywards (unless there's a roof, then they're dropped once the momentum wears off), and best of all? You can change the elemental type of the ability to make it proc Viral, Fire or Corrosive regularly, reliably. 

You can even add synergy by saying that Tailwind through a funnel causes double damage to all enemies inside. There's all sorts of possibilities for that kind of thing. Somebody suggested that Aim Glide through a funnel should boost players up in the air for longer glides ^^

Most importantly for the sake of re-working it uses all the same assets the game already uses, it requires minimal programming changes, and voila! A fully functioning Tornado that Zephyr can cast, move independently of, and turn off again whenever she needs it.

First: Nice addition. Nothing to point there.

Second: I don't think that damage has to have increased ticks. The ticks are fine for finalization in low level missions, but the main concept is for CC. You could slow down the capture procedure, so you can actually shoot the target (like the Vauban's Bastille, but he rotates smoothly around the eye of the storm). 
About the throwing up, that's awesome. I could think of an augment that can create an addictional tornado to draw all items (like Vauban's Vortex).

Third: yes, turning it off is great.

Solid and good points. The whole thing is making DE pay attention to the Zephyr issue.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Hey, glad I got somebody ^^

Thanks for the feedback, and I'm glad so much of what I've said makes sense, but here's a little point we could go into:

8 hours ago, Kyoketsu said:

Now, I'd rather see a flying Zephyr.

I know people would, it just... While I was here I argued for weeks with a guy who was absolutely convinced that not only could she fly, but she should 100% fly. It ended up in a bit of a stalemate because of a simple fact; while she can fly, there are systems that she could use, and her abilities may in fact all benefit from it, there is literally no reason for her to beyond the belief that she's a flying frame.

If Tailwind was extendable, as in holding down the button would do a semi-channel and allow a slight 'follow-the-cursor' to make sure we go through a door instead of hitting the frame, then that would cover distance, and if Low Grav was applied to Aim Glide, with the control we have normally in the air and making her float longer during it, then we have both aspects that a flying ability would give her without losing another ability.

However, if we were to put something in that made her fly, it would have to be a cast. She'd lose one of her abilities, or have to have it worked into another ability, in order to make it work and... it just would be a waste, really. Turbulence would still act the same, Tornado (even with the changes) would still do the same thing, and Tailwind would have even less reason to cast it. All the things that she can do well would actually be made worse by flying too because she wouldn't be able to quickly dodge behind cover when Turbulence ran out, she wouldn't be able to melee combo, and half of the weapons in the game would lose out due to either not being hitscan, having a beam length, having drop off damage or spread, and so on. Gone would be the days where you can sprint up to a Bombard and Sancti Tigris it in the face.

But there's also game functions flying gets in the way of. Want to res a team-member? Land. Want to pick something up? Land. Want to interact with a console? Land. Wand to pop life support? Land.

And what enemies fly? I mean, actually go higher than a regular jumping animation? One, consistently, the Grineer Hellion. That's it. There's nothing up there. The whole reason Zephyr goes up is to come down again with 2, and her 2 is what needs fixing (along with her 4).

That's why I say 'animation based' on that fix, because here's the problem: If you change how 'momentum animation' works, then every player suffers from it since half the abilities in the game would become interruptable by regular statuses (like fire blasts from Arson units). There is one consistent interrupt for those animations in the game already, it's something DE uses for abilities like Stomp to ensure that it CCs everything, and the same for Sonar, Maim, Radial Blind and other radial affect CC abilities: it's other animations. Give Zephyr's 2 an animation based knock down and it interrupts everything, that way DE don't need to program in an 'exception' to the momentum system and potentially introduce bugs.

Anyway, it Chrisma, Merr Chrisma! I'll catch up with this topic next time!

[AcceptYourDeath]

I enjoy Zephyr as she is, however she could use some buffs, improvements and maybe a slight rework.

- All her skills should achieve the range she does with Stretch and Overextend by only using Stretch. 

- Divebomb Vortex is pretty much broken, instead of pilling up enemys ready to be crushed they ragdoll all over the place often, as if you do Mag`s Pull. That`s not what you are looking for using this augment. All her augments could use a buff or different effect. I only like using Jet Stream. 

- Tailwind and Divebomb should have some sort of additional effect, I am not looking for damage exactly, more for a helpful effect. 

[Caelward]

This is the sort of flight I want to see on Zephyr.

4 hours ago, Thaylien said:

If Tailwind was extendable, as in holding down the button would do a semi-channel and allow a slight 'follow-the-cursor' to make sure we go through a door instead of hitting the frame, then that would cover distance, and if Low Grav was applied to Aim Glide, with the control we have normally in the air and making her float longer during it, then we have both aspects that a flying ability would give her without losing another ability.

Having Tailwind be an ability that can be channeled for continuous flight. Hold the button down and you continue to streak through the air. I have Titania, and her flight is different. It feels slow and restrained to me now that I've become used to Zephyr. If you compare Titania's exalted mode to this potential rework of Zephyr's tailwind, you can consider it a difference of a jet on afterburner vs a helicopter. Both are powerful machines with proven design and purpose, but their purpose is not the same.

Zephyr's tailwind will get here from here to there yesterday, and the boom of her passing by should have a knockdown on any enemies in the way.  Titania's flight however is for buzzing around and laying waste to any enemies around her. Zephyr's 'flight' is for fast movement, Titania's is for combat superiority.

Titania does have a flight mode dash though. She can zip along the ground exceptionally quickly, although you really don't want to hit any obstacles. It's a sort of reverse tailwind type of thing. You can do that by modding for friction, which allows her to go REALLY FAST, but only on the ground. A friend of mine has been playing her a lot recently, and I have to keep picking him back up because he ran into something.

Edited December 25, 2016 by Caelward

[VoidWraith]

On 12/24/2016 at 9:11 AM, Kyoketsu said:

• Because she's not a bird? She's kind of a gliding bird. Titania is a fairy, which means she can fly. Not her.

Although it was not said she is a bird, but her design makes her bird-like, implies it. But then again, not all birds can fly... (penguins, ostrich, chickens, etc.)

Edited December 25, 2016 by VoidWraith

[K4n0_]

11 hours ago, Thaylien said:

If Tailwind was extendable, as in holding down the button would do a semi-channel and allow a slight 'follow-the-cursor' to make sure we go through a door instead of hitting the frame, then that would cover distance, and if Low Grav was applied to Aim Glide, with the control we have normally in the air and making her float longer during it, then we have both aspects that a flying ability would give her without losing another ability.

However, if we were to put something in that made her fly, it would have to be a cast. She'd lose one of her abilities, or have to have it worked into another ability, in order to make it work and... it just would be a waste, really. Turbulence would still act the same, Tornado (even with the changes) would still do the same thing, and Tailwind would have even less reason to cast it. All the things that she can do well would actually be made worse by flying too because she wouldn't be able to quickly dodge behind cover when Turbulence ran out, she wouldn't be able to melee combo, and half of the weapons in the game would lose out due to either not being hitscan, having a beam length, having drop off damage or spread, and so on. Gone would be the days where you can sprint up to a Bombard and Sancti Tigris it in the face.

But there's also game functions flying gets in the way of. Want to res a team-member? Land. Want to pick something up? Land. Want to interact with a console? Land. Wand to pop life support? Land.

This, of course, mantaining the same functional method for Zephyr. A "Super Jump", if I could put it like that, in any direction. My suggestion was to "activate no clip mode" while pressing the Tailwind mode. I don't want her to actually fly at all, because she would lose functionality and require a whole redesign. I said the "no clip mode" could be something that could be worked on. And in the case of casting, replace Tailwind with this mode. Or maybe giving it both functions we said, like the Vauban's mine mode.

 

11 hours ago, Thaylien said:

That's why I say 'animation based' on that fix, because here's the problem: If you change how 'momentum animation' works, then every player suffers from it since half the abilities in the game would become interruptable by regular statuses (like fire blasts from Arson units). There is one consistent interrupt for those animations in the game already, it's something DE uses for abilities like Stomp to ensure that it CCs everything, and the same for Sonar, Maim, Radial Blind and other radial affect CC abilities: it's other animations. Give Zephyr's 2 an animation based knock down and it interrupts everything, that way DE don't need to program in an 'exception' to the momentum system and potentially introduce bugs.

OK, now I got it. It would be just insert it for Zephyr, then. Nice.

 

9 hours ago, AcceptYourDeath said:

- Tailwind and Divebomb should have some sort of additional effect, I am not looking for damage exactly, more for a helpful effect. 

What do you mean? Status proc?

11 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Merr Chrisma! I'll catch up with this topic next time!

[AcceptYourDeath]

5 hours ago, Kyoketsu said:

15 hours ago, AcceptYourDeath said:

- Tailwind and Divebomb should have some sort of additional effect, I am not looking for damage exactly, more for a helpful effect. 

What do you mean? Status proc?

Maybe? It would fit right in with the status effects from Tornado and probably really good thematically. At the moment she does low "damage" with Tailwind at about 3m which is basically meaningless and can`t be changed in any meaningful way with mods. 

If she would do a 100% blast proc (5m-9m?) to everything on the way during Tailwind that should suit her very well. However this is also redundant to Dive Bomb and I wouldn`t consider it as a very strong or helpful effect on itself.

I`d say based on her current kit Tailwind and Divebomb could be buffed in multiple ways without making her to overpowered. So a blast proc for the entire length of Tailwind would be a start, on top of that Tailwind and Divebomb should have a combo effect, with the following example!

Tailwind increases the damage for Divebomb significantly for few seconds, Divebomb does with this combo-buff the knockdown as it is but also provides 100% cold proc. This would enable Zephyr to perform multiple ground finisher attacks and benefit more from the knockdown. It is her natural combo anyway, it fits with her theme of working with the elements and is engaging. 

Divebomb increases range and damage for Tailwind significantly for several seconds. Performing 100% blast and cold proc on 10m-15m? 

So basically pushing her first and second skill out of being not much more than movement skills isn`t too much to ask for I think, considering her ultimate is a "decent" cc but also hindering everybody and herself to kill enemys inside Tornados. 

 

[paperbagdemon]

I'd love to see dive bomb changed to a skill where you can push enemies away ala frost snowglobe instantly being caught in tornadoes if tangled. The skill is pretty pointless to use at it's current state. If they could be ragdolled in a rotational motion then it would be really cool. Then dive bomb vortex augment adjusted to add an ability to suck enemies towards you instead when holding the key. Tornado could use a little help with better target acquisition, maybe a little aoe around the tornadoes that also procs status

Edited December 26, 2016 by paperbagdemon

[Shining_Darkness]

I've added some more ideas to main post, hopefully DE will read xD

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

Why? 

The slow, weak, useless abilitys? Result of the envirement surrounding her changing.

 

Ever noticed how tornados are able to switch elements and set status but how it is not guaranteed? Tornados were frickin giant once and most status was permanent. Caught enemys had time to catch multiple status types and the tornados did theyr damage, throwing the enemys to its base rather then across the room.

All this floating, this air mobility was quite unique to her...

 

But the game evolved. Status stopped beein permanent, ejected enemys didn't keep the status and the execution wasn't good enough anymore, so they got changed to be more, keep enemys caught shorter and offer better CC by throwing them across the room. 

Parcour 2.0 was released later and every frame got air mobility 😒 They didn't look at her ever since.

 

The why is easy, cause she is outdated.

[Shining_Darkness]

On 26.12.2016 at 6:11 PM, (PS4)CoolD2108 said:

Why? 

The slow, weak, useless abilitys? Result of the envirement surrounding her changing.

 

Ever noticed how tornados are able to switch elements and set status but how it is not guaranteed? Tornados were frickin giant once and most status was permanent. Caught enemys had time to catch multiple status types and the tornados did theyr damage, throwing the enemys to its base rather then across the room.

All this floating, this air mobility was quite unique to her...

 

But the game evolved. Status stopped beein permanent, ejected enemys didn't keep the status and the execution wasn't good enough anymore, so they got changed to be more, keep enemys caught shorter and offer better CC by throwing them across the room. 

Parcour 2.0 was released later and every frame got air mobility 😒 They didn't look at her ever since.

 

The why is easy, cause she is outdated.

Exactly why I think rework is needed :P

Edited December 31, 2016 by Shining_Darkness

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

On 26.12.2016 at 11:24 PM, Shining_Darkness said:

Exactly why I think reword is needed :P

Desperately needet in fact and i'm pretty sure she's gonna get one...when she gets primed....cause that's how things work around here 😒 may take a while...

[K4n0_]

On 26/12/2016 at 0:11 PM, (PS4)CoolD2108 said:

Why? 

The slow, weak, useless abilitys? Result of the envirement surrounding her changing.

 

Ever noticed how tornados are able to switch elements and set status but how it is not guaranteed? Tornados were frickin giant once and most status was permanent. Caught enemys had time to catch multiple status types and the tornados did theyr damage, throwing the enemys to its base rather then across the room.

All this floating, this air mobility was quite unique to her...

 

But the game evolved. Status stopped beein permanent, ejected enemys didn't keep the status and the execution wasn't good enough anymore, so they got changed to be more, keep enemys caught shorter and offer better CC by throwing them across the room. 

Parcour 2.0 was released later and every frame got air mobility 😒 They didn't look at her ever since.

 

The why is easy, cause she is outdated.

Indeed, she is outdated. But the main thought is that we can reduce this outdating with some little tweaks or changes (like they did in Ash) than an entire rework. As we discussed, the up-pumping for the Tornado skill, the many ways to use Tailwind (maybe many skills within one, like Vauban's mines). About her air mobility, we discussed further in this topic about it and how it could change.

I don't think a rework is truly needed: that would just remove its concept; and for the Zephyr fans, just diminish their love for her as it is right now.

I know there is always a choice for a rework, but tweaks can at least be tested in form to see if a Rework is truly needed. But I don't think it is necessary. Probably in the advent of Zephyr Prime they will think about it.

[Nebbers]

I like the idea of her first ability being able to mimic her second ability and the second ability slot being used for something else. Otherwise, as Zephyr stands, I'm really enjoying the way she plays. I love playing Zephyr and getting to experience the low gravity. It makes playing her such a unique experience from the other frames. I love gliding in the air for what feels like forever. 

As I started playing her on higher levels, I was disappointed that her 4th ability didn't seem to kill as much any more, but as others mentioned, it's amazing crowd control. I think perhaps some tweaks would be enjoyed, but that goes for any frame, really.

[(XBOX)bigsnake84]

I've always loved Zephyr, it would be nice to have some tweaks.

I'd like to see her Tail Wind have a 3 second hover period at the end of its boost to allow time to pick the next Tail Wind or to ensure you're Dive Bombing with accuracy. Drop sooner by crouching if it gets annoying

As for Turbulence, someone mentioning how flamethrowers still hurt her got me thinking. Maybe that could turn it into a flame-nado. Maybe enemy elemental damage can add to her Turbulence with a short term, small range, aoe status proc similar to Volt's Shocking Speed augment. Also if someone melees her during Turbulence, itd still hurt her but it would react with an aoe knockback

 

All we would need then is a shark element for a sharknado XD

[AnatharsWrath]

As far as her 4th ability goes, an idea i had was instead of summoning a bunch of aimless tornados that barely do much...she could summon a large tornado like wind tunnel in a location that acts as an area denial CC.

mods like power range could boost the range in which the torrent begins sucking the enemy towards it. When the enemy becomes close enough they become rag dolled and remain so until they get tossed from the top of the torrent. Of course the Tenno can shoot the enemy and the torrent itself to change its element to cause damage or status effects like before.

Could also add a synergistic attack with her divebomb where if Zephyr DB's into the tornado it causes a explosive dispersion of wind that sends blades of air around the area with a decent chance to proc slash damage (or high damage proc of the wind tunnels element).

As far as the current augment for her 4 that is in the game. it can do something similar where Zephyr will summon about 4 smaller wind tunnels that bounce the enemy about and cause damage and fellow tenno can stand within them as a temporary jet stream-like defense.

your thoughts?