Simple Equinox Fix

[malekas]

Equinox needs help. She's an amazing frame that can potentially handle any situation, offensive or defensive, but some of her abilities actually get in the way of that.

 

Metamorphosis

This ability is actually the main culprit that hurts her entire kit. Being able to switch forms in the middle of a mission is great, but when it completely strips all progress you've made on your abilities no one's ever going to use it. You actually need to build around this ability and not for it. You need to pick which form you want to go into the mission as, and build for that and never switch. The fix is really easy though; all that needs to happen is switching from day form to night form (or vice-versa) doesn't wipe any progress you've made on her abilities. The only thing to watch out for is how this is done. You don't want separate values for her abilities, such as being able to have 80% towards Pacify and 72% towards Provoke at the same time, so you need to make both abilities operate off of the same value.

 

 Example, you build up to 80% in night form towards her Pacify, but then if you switch to day form that 80% only goes towards Provoke, you no longer get the benefit of Pacify. And for Mend and Maim. Say if you're in night form building up towards Mend, you can then switch to day form and release it as Maim, but then you would have to build it back up if you want to go back to night form and use Mend. This is the only thing that needs to happen to Metamorphosis. The small buffs that you get when you switch forms are just there as a bonus. The main point of this ability is to switch her function from offense <-> defense.

 

Rest/Rage

 

Rest is fine, the only problem with this ability is Rage. Rage is nothing but a discount bad version of a speed Nova's Molecular Prime. I think the best way to fix this ability is swap the speed buff that you give the enemy for a chaos effect. A lot of people might complain that this is encroaching too much on Nyx's territory, but the big difference is that Rage would be a small targeted area, where as Chaos is a massive range all around you. I also think that the damage increase debuff that you deal to the target should be increased. Between Molecular Prime doubling the damage an enemy takes and Rhino's Roar potentially tripling the damage you deal with everything you use, the small increase in damage that you get from Rage just isn't enough.

 

Pacify/Provoke

 

Pacify is ok except for two things. The damage decrease shouldn't be affected by range, it should be static no matter how close or far away the enemy is. Also, Pacify should be built up based on damage dealt, just like the rest of Equinox's abilities, because having it built up based on damage taken takes an exceptionally long time. 

 

Provoke. I'm not sure I would do anything with it. Trying to keep the ability the way it is, but change it so it would be better, is difficult. The only ideas that I could come up with would either make it terrible or OP. So, maybe just keep it as a boost to power strength.

 

Mend/Maim

 

Only change that needs to happen here is Mend should slowly recover health for all allies within range while it's active and building up

[Vactro]

I really hope they do that change to metamorphosis some time

[tnccs215]

I mostly support, but I think Mend needs more than that, and Rest could use an extra support functionality at the expense of the spam fest it currently is.

[DreamsmithJane]

There's a reason you lose progress when switching forms. It's because building up that progress by staying in one form comes with an associated cost. It is that opportunity cost that balances Equinox's ability to effectively be a "master of all trades" (contrasted with the usual "jack of all trades, master of none"). If you didn't lose progress, Equinox would go from being able to adapt to any situation, to simply being good at everything, all the time. As it is, in order to get Maim's crazy damage numbers, you need to be vulnerable by staying in day form. If you want to CC enemies, reduce incoming damage, and heal allies, you need to put off doing damage. This is by design. The full potential of both forms shouldn't be available all at once, and each shouldn't be unlocked by spending time in the other form.

Regarding Rage, it has the same damage amplification value as Rhino's Roar, so I don't know how you expect Roar to triple anyone's damage if Rage can't. This would require 400% power strength for both abilities — which is attainable, but not common. Rage also only costs 25 base energy, to Roar's 75 and MP's 100. Unlike Speed Nova, it allows you to be selective about which enemies you speed up, and can easily grant a larger damage boost (thanks to Provoke), allowing you to one-shot heavies in preparation for a large Maim cast. High range augmented Rage can also allow Equinox to emulate a Speed Nova, while still having access to all her night form powers.

Pacify doesn't build up anything. You're talking like the augment is an inherent part of the ability. Peaceful Provocation is badly designed, because more than anything else Equinox has, it punishes you for switching forms. On top of that, the Pacify side is weak because Rest exists, and the Provoke side is just a straight buff to the base effect (which is commonly accepted as undesirable in an augment). The whole thing needs to be scrapped and replaced. As for Pacify getting weaker with range, remember that it's effectively always on, as long as you're in night form and don't get magnetic status, because it doesn't disable energy regeneration. Yes, Trinity can perma-Blessing thanks to EV, but she has no CC, just single-target stuns.

Yes, the fact that Mend does nothing until deactivated is annoying, and makes it feel a bit clunky. I'd like to see it grant shields equal to Maim's aura damage, and leave overshields on deactivation (like the Shield Charger mod for sentinels). Health regeneration would either be low enough to be trivial, or high enough to reward channeling it nonstop instead of releasing the healing burst as intended. Granting additional shields would make it more effective at preventing allies (or Equinox herself) from being downed before they're healed, by providing immediate protection.

[tnccs215]

2 minutes ago, DreamsmithJane said:

There's a reason you lose progress when switching forms. It's because building up that progress by staying in one form comes with an associated cost. It is that opportunity cost that balances Equinox's ability to effectively be a "master of all trades" (contrasted with the usual "jack of all trades, master of none"). If you didn't lose progress, Equinox would go from being able to adapt to any situation, to simply being good at everything, all the time. As it is, in order to get Maim's crazy damage numbers, you need to be vulnerable by staying in day form. If you want to CC enemies, reduce incoming damage, and heal allies, you need to put off doing damage. This is by design. The full potential of both forms shouldn't be available all at once, and each shouldn't be unlocked by spending time in the other form.

Question: Do you think they mean that you should have, say, Pacify active while on Day form (and vice versa), or that once they return to Night Form, Pacify will already be up (and, if with the augment, with the slow it already had)?

[DreamsmithJane]

1 hour ago, tnccs215 said:

Question: Do you think they mean that you should have, say, Pacify active while on Day form (and vice versa), or that once they return to Night Form, Pacify will already be up (and, if with the augment, with the slow it already had)?

What? I don't have to guess what is meant. The words are right there. "you build up to 80% in night form towards her Pacify, but then if you switch to day form that 80% only goes towards Provoke, you no longer get the benefit of Pacify. And for Mend and Maim. Say if you're in night form building up towards Mend, you can then switch to day form and release it as Maim"

For one thing, as I pointed out, Pacify & Provoke don't have any kind of buildup on their own, and Peaceful Provocation has both different values and different starting points for each, so that provision is already violated, and given the different starting points, it's not possible to reconcile them to the same numbers without badly imbalancing the ability. As for the ult, being able to switch into day form and immediately release all the damage, with Maim, that you stored while channeling Mend from the safety of night form, is exactly what shouldn't be allowed.

[4RT1LL3RY]

On 1/3/2017 at 6:52 PM, DreamsmithJane said:

There's a reason you lose progress when switching forms. It's because building up that progress by staying in one form comes with an associated cost. It is that opportunity cost that balances Equinox's ability to effectively be a "master of all trades" (contrasted with the usual "jack of all trades, master of none"). If you didn't lose progress, Equinox would go from being able to adapt to any situation, to simply being good at everything, all the time. As it is, in order to get Maim's crazy damage numbers, you need to be vulnerable by staying in day form. If you want to CC enemies, reduce incoming damage, and heal allies, you need to put off doing damage. This is by design. The full potential of both forms shouldn't be available all at once, and each shouldn't be unlocked by spending time in the other form.

Losing progress is fine, losing all progress is less so.  Make it so when casting Metamorphosis 50% of stored charge from Toggle Abilities is transferred to the other form.  And to incentive not just dropping power strength scale the percentage transferred.  This would mean balanced builds that don't go all in would be best for players who want to use both forms of Equinox.  

Heck if Metamorphosis just kept Equinox's form's 3 and 4 in the same toggle state it would make it flow way better.  Currently if you are Day Equinox with Maim active and want to heal allies you will release your Maim charge because it doesn't transfer, then use 1, then reactivate 4 as Mend and kill some enemies.  That is clunky.  If instead as Day form with Maim active you just pressed 1 to change to night form and while you do lose your maim damage stack you are immediately have Mend Active and can charge it to heal your allies.  Same with keeping Provoke/Pacify toggled on when changing, you lose the previous buff but it saves you from having to recast.

On 1/3/2017 at 6:52 PM, DreamsmithJane said:

Pacify doesn't build up anything. You're talking like the augment is an inherent part of the ability. Peaceful Provocation is badly designed, because more than anything else Equinox has, it punishes you for switching forms. On top of that, the Pacify side is weak because Rest exists, and the Provoke side is just a straight buff to the base effect (which is commonly accepted as undesirable in an augment). The whole thing needs to be scrapped and replaced. As for Pacify getting weaker with range, remember that it's effectively always on, as long as you're in night form and don't get magnetic status, because it doesn't disable energy regeneration. Yes, Trinity can perma-Blessing thanks to EV, but she has no CC, just single-target stuns.

Pacify also suffers from very poor scaling on the DR from Power Strength compared to every other ability that gives DR.  Mesa and Mirage get 95% DR with just an Intensify, but they are just user only abilities.  Trinities Blessing gives its maxed out DR of 75% with +50% power strength.  Meanwhile Pacify needs +100% power strength to get 75% DR which only applies at close range and only gives 37.5% DR at farther ranges.  If they capped Pacify's DR at 90-95% and had it basically capped at the same Power Strength as Maxed out Provoke, aka +150% power strength, that would be more comparable to other frame abilities  Because the current Scaling on it is terrible.  And the fact that outside your ability range you still take full damage is another point in favor of more DR being OK even though it also applies to allies.

Going maximum min-max crazy stuff involving Nidus you ran the maximum power possible strength is the game, eg 1.87x power strength from Nidus's link and 349% power strength on Equinox for 633.5% power strength Pacify provides 92.3% DR and only gives half that part of its range.  That is not okay.  A Nekros with Shield of Shadows only needs 214% power strength for 90% DR and is immune to status effects too..

If they changed it to have linear growth in Damage Reduction but with a cap that would make sense, and it would be okay with 95% DR because most of the aura only gives 47.5% DR, unlike Blessing.

Quality of Life

A simple change which would be appreciated especially in Sorties is if being Downed did not toggle off Pacify and Provoke or Mend and Maim.  If Equinox still has power they should stay active.  World on Fire isn't toggled off when Downed so why is Equinox's Ult?  Losing the DR or Slow from Pacify while you still have energy is very annoying.  If the discharge of Mend when being downed prevented you from being downed, that would be different.

 

[DreamsmithJane]

14 hours ago, 4RT1LL3RY said:

That is clunky.

It's supposed to be clunky. You know what's not clunky? Using those powers when you're already in night form. That's how it's supposed to work. A good Equinox player will be able to anticipate when their damage reduction and healing are needed, and switch to night form before their squad gets wrecked. Knowing when to be in each form instead of switching reactively is part of playing the frame.

Mesa, Mirage, Nekros, Nidus? Self-buffs only. Trinity? As I said, she lacks crowd control and damage. A numbers-only comparison of a single ability out of context is not going to help. As for the DR of Pacify being reduced with range, only the outer quarter of the radius is half the value. Yes, that's more than a quarter of the total area, but it's nowhere near "most".

Finally, most channeled abilities are deactivated when downed. World on Fire is an exception, and I can't even tell why it's an exception, because there's nothing unusual about it to warrant that. It's probably a holdover from when it was duration-based, that simply never got changed when it was converted to an open-ended channel. If anything, World on Fire should be changed to fit the standard behaviour of similar abilities.

Edited January 21, 2017 by DreamsmithJane

[4RT1LL3RY]

28 minutes ago, DreamsmithJane said:

It's supposed to be clunky. You know what's not clunky? Using those powers when you're already in night form. That's how it's supposed to work. A good Equinox player will be able to anticipate when their damage reduction and healing are needed, and switch to night form before their squad gets wrecked. Knowing when to be in each form instead of switching reactively is part of playing the frame.

Mesa, Mirage, Nekros, Nidus? Self-buffs only. Trinity? As I said, she lacks crowd control and damage. A numbers-only comparison of a single ability out of context is not going to help. As for the DR of Pacify being reduced with range, only the outer quarter of the radius is half the value. Yes, that's more than a quarter of the total area, but it's nowhere near "most".

Finally, most channeled abilities are deactivated when downed. World on Fire is an exception, and I can't even tell why it's an exception, because there's nothing unusual about it to warrant that. It's probably a holdover from when it was duration-based, that simply never got changed when it was converted to an open-ended channel. If anything, World on Fire should be changed to fit the standard behaviour of similar abilities.

Why should it be that clunky though?  The Fact that everytime you switch form while having two powers active you are spending, before efficiency, 25 for metamorphosis, 10 for pacify/provoke, and 50 for Mend/Maim means you cannot do mixed play Day and Night form without maxed efficiency or a flow mod.  Healing your allies takes more effort than just letting them get downed, killing everything as day form, and then reviving them at full HP.  Are you sure you don't mean switching proactively?  Because switching before the squad gets wrecked isn't reactive.  Anticipating your squad going down means you are never in day form,

No, what I'm saying is that the fact Pacify is log scaling while every other damage reduction power is linear scaling is inconsistent with all other powers and just gimps Equinox compared to it being Linear.  Would it be overpowered making it so that a 250% strength Equinox had 90% DR instead of 80% DR?  

Do not compare Equinox as a whole to Trinity, when comparing the two you are comparing Night Equinox to Trinity and neither has any damage abilities.  Day Equinox has a single damage ability that scales with your weapons.

Most channeled abilities either are exalted weapons, which can't work in downed state due to not being secondary weapons, lock you into an animation state ala Soundquake/Spectral Scream, or make you immune to damage so prevent you from being downed in the first place.  The only ones outside of those type are World on Fire, Effigy, Prowl, Mend/Maim, Pacify/Provoke, Navigator, Renewal, Descrate, and Prism.  Effigy, Prism, and World on Fire all work when downed and they are all non-exalted Ultimate abilities.  Navigator, Prowl, Descrate, and Equinox's power toggle off when downed.  Mend/Maim continuing to work when downed would match the other non-exalted channeled Ultimates.

[menarch]

so you want her to be OP instead of strong? seem fair...

[DreamsmithJane]

19 hours ago, 4RT1LL3RY said:

Why should it be that clunky though?

Because the whole point of having two forms is that you aren't allowed to have all the abilities of both forms available at the same time. While you are in day form, it should be clunky to access night powers. Otherwise, there'd be no benefit to actually being in one form or the other, and Equinox would simply have more powers than most other frames, with no down sides. No, you don't need max efficiency or Flow. I use only Streamline, and do just fine. Besides, using efficiency and energy mods on a frame that uses a lot of powers is normal.

19 hours ago, 4RT1LL3RY said:

Are you sure you don't mean switching proactively?  Because switching before the squad gets wrecked isn't reactive.  Anticipating your squad going down means you are never in day form

I said instead of switching reactively. I'm very aware that it's not reactive, and that was my point. And I don't find that to be true at all. You simply need to learn to recognize when you have the drop on your enemies and vice versa. Allies are reloading, knocked down, or otherwise unable to fight? Switch to night form and bring up Pacify or toss out Rest to protect them. Everyone on their feet and shooting? Go day form and get Maim running.

20 hours ago, 4RT1LL3RY said:

Would it be overpowered making it so that a 250% strength Equinox had 90% DR instead of 80% DR?

You realize that would cut damage taken in half, from 20% to 10%, right? Isn't math fun? XD There's a reason that Blessing got a 75% cap added. By the way, Pacify is unique in being able to protect objectives (and anything that's not a tenno, really), in addition to Mend healing them. That's pretty important. Being able to reach 80% at all on a power that protects the whole squad and objectives is kind of a big deal.

20 hours ago, 4RT1LL3RY said:

Do not compare Equinox as a whole to Trinity, when comparing the two you are comparing Night Equinox to Trinity and neither has any damage abilities.  Day Equinox has a single damage ability that scales with your weapons.

Sorry, but what? Equinox can convert to day form and do damage. No, she can't do it while reducing damage taken, but Trinity can't do it at all. Why shouldn't I acknowledge that? Are you really going to sit there and say using both forms should be seamless, and then tell me not to compare one whole frame against another? Be reasonable.

[bl4ckhunter]

just throwing this out here, who actually uses night form at all outside from getting an occasional quick heal? pacify is pretty much crap with massive energy cost and a damage reduction effect that only works if the enemy is in your face already, mend is utterly overkill for any and all purposes, rest is mildly useful but then again, the range is short and i could rather  use a ground slam. At the end of the day the only abilities that you end up using are maim and provoke (and most people build range so to hell with provoke too).

I don't know if keeping the bonuses would make equinox op but at least it might might make me think about using night for more than what it takes to activate mend, kill an enemy and get back to full health when i'm low.

Edited January 22, 2017 by bl4ckhunter

[Aearie]

1 hour ago, DreamsmithJane said:

Because the whole point of having two forms is that you aren't allowed to have all the abilities of both forms available at the same time. While you are in day form, it should be clunky to access night powers.

An ability should never feel clunky, even for balance reasons. If Equinox were to become overpowered because she was able to actually use her whole kit in a unclunky manner, I think most Equinox players (myself included) wouldn't mind having her abilities rebalanced.

And this is assuming that keeping stacks between forms would actually be overpowered, and I don't think it is. In order to heal someone, you'd have to sacrifice all of your progress on Maim, which can clear entire rooms. That is a significant sacrifice, especially when you consider that Mend doesn't even give overshields or anything, so most of your Maim stacks will be "wasted" in order to heal. Even switching from Mend to Maim wouldn't be OP, considering that Maim does nothing while active, so you'd essentially be wasting your time. Sure, you'd get reduced damage, but you also don't get Maim's crowd control, which is again a fair sacrifice.

As for her switching 3 freely, again, this wouldn't be overpowered. You would be sacrificing power strength for an enemy attack debuff, which isn't nearly as effective as Trinity's Blessing and without the heal. You are forgetting that the aura degrades with distance, and actually requires Equinox to build for range. Meaning that while Trinity can give her full 75% reduction to anyone 50 meters away in a single cast, Equinox at max power strength gives roughly only 40% to those in her outer circle, and 80% in her inner circle only. AND it has a range of about 26 meters with Stretch and Cunning Drift equipped. Even if you go for max power range, you only get 40 meters, and obviously take a hit to the effectiveness of the aura. And this is all for an aura that also takes energy for every second for every enemy in your aura. I think the ability is plenty balanced enough that being able to switch between Pacify and Provoke freely wouldn't be a problem.

As a side note, keep in mind that Trinity's Blessing affects allies, and Equinox's Pacify affects enemies. So you can't just have everyone huddle around Equinox to get the full effect of the aura, meaning you'll have to contend with enemy placement as well. Meanwhile Trinity just pops her Blessing whenever it goes down and goes along her merry way. I'm not saying that Pacify should be as good as Blessing, I'm saying it clearly has plenty of cons and as such shouldn't be treated like it is. It's far from it, in fact.

So she can protect an object. Woo. When has anyone ever said "No thanks Frost and Limbo, I'll be taking Equinox today" during a defense mission. Again, suddenly allowing her to change forms wouldn't make her the best choice in any department, so she'd be the jack of all trades, master of none she was meant to be. At the moment, she's more jack of all trades with a wooden leg.

If anything else, the current iteration of Equinox is flawed, as you completely miss the duality aspect of the frame when you rarely, if ever, change forms during a mission. And I'm pretty sure we won't start picking Equinox over Trinity or Nova just because she can provide damage and sustain more reliably.

 

[4RT1LL3RY]

2 hours ago, DreamsmithJane said:

Because the whole point of having two forms is that you aren't allowed to have all the abilities of both forms available at the same time. While you are in day form, it should be clunky to access night powers. Otherwise, there'd be no benefit to actually being in one form or the other, and Equinox would simply have more powers than most other frames, with no down sides. ~Gestures at Vauban's Mine Layer and Ivara's Quiver~

I said instead of switching reactively. I'm very aware that it's not reactive, and that was my point. And I don't find that to be true at all. You simply need to learn to recognize when you have the drop on your enemies and vice versa. Allies are reloading, knocked down, or otherwise unable to fight? Switch to night form and bring up Pacify or toss out Rest to protect them. Everyone on their feet and shooting? Go day form and get Maim running.  ~Why not just stay day form, kill everything near them by popping Maim, then recast Maim for its very useful stun instead.  CC with a delay before being able to use it that also stops your current abilities is strictly worse than just shooting that crowd of enemies for 2 seconds in most situations.  If Rage didn't actually make enemies more dangerous by making them attack faster it would be much better.

You realize that would cut damage taken in half, from 20% to 10%, right? Isn't math fun? XD There's a reason that Blessing got a 75% cap added. By the way, Pacify is unique in being able to protect objectives (and anything that's not a tenno, really), in addition to Mend healing them. That's pretty important. Being able to reach 80% at all on a power that protects the whole squad and objectives is kind of a big deal.  ~On a 250% power strength build you don't have Overextended that means you have 23.2m of half reduction and 17.4m of full reduction, enemies outside of those ranges still do 100% of normal damage.  It is literal enemy reduction of damage rather than normal damage reduction.  I understand math, you are ignoring the fact that Equinox's damage reduction is worthless against the farther enemies who do the most damage, snipers and bombards.  Situational bonuses should be higher than global bonuses, which is why Eclipse, Shattershield, and Shield of Shadows are higher damage reduction then Blessing now.

Sorry, but what? Equinox can convert to day form and do damage. No, she can't do it while reducing damage taken, but Trinity can't do it at all. Why shouldn't I acknowledge that? Are you really going to sit there and say using both forms should be seamless, and then tell me not to compare one whole frame against another? Be reasonable. ~If the forms were seamless yes you could compare it against other frames, because as it is in 90% of circumstance I would rather have Day Equinox and Night Equinox as completely separate frames with an actually useful 1 instead.

Frankly if Equinox got a rework that actually gave incentive for switching form via some sort of 'Balance' mechanic that would go a ways to make her more enjoyable.  Right now she is a frame with only three powers because Metamorphosis in both forms doesn't provide significant bonuses for the duration of the buff due to not giving the full effect the entire duration and is required to change your abilities.  The current reason to use Equinox for high levels is because Day Form's Maim scales infinitely which makes her a great AOE Nuker.  At high levels Ivara beats out Equinox for CC, Damage mitigation, and can do damage at the same time.

All it would really take is changing Metamorphosis, for the duration of it Equinox would stay in combined form and receive a base line stat buff that doesn't decrease until Metamorphosis's duration is up.

[DreamsmithJane]

26 minutes ago, Thursley said:

An ability should never feel clunky, even for balance reasons.

It's not clunky when you're in the appropriate form to use it. Ease of use and accessibility are valid balancing factors.

31 minutes ago, Thursley said:

Even switching from Mend to Maim wouldn't be OP, considering that Maim does nothing while active, so you'd essentially be wasting your time. Sure, you'd get reduced damage, but you also don't get Maim's crowd control, which is again a fair sacrifice.

It's true, you don't get Maim's stun. You get Rest instead, which is a far stronger crowd control. If you think that night form is not far safer to be in, or that being able to accumulate damage for a room-clearing burst while in that form is not incredibly broken, I don't know what to tell you, because there is just no reasoning with that. Power should require risk. Safety should sacrifice power. That's balance.

36 minutes ago, Thursley said:

You are forgetting that the aura degrades with distance, and actually requires Equinox to build for range.

I'm not "forgetting" anything, thanks. I know exactly how it works, including that almost 44% of its effective area works at half strength. But you are taking the powers out of context, and ignoring what Pacify can do that no other damage reduction can. People won't pick Equinox over Frost? Fine. They can bring their Frost, and I'll bring Equinox. Snow globes will last twice as long, and the whole squad will do more damage and be safer all over the map, because I know when to switch forms and how to use her powers.

I never said Pacify, on its own, is as good as Blessing. It's not. It's also not an ult, not the signature power of the frame, and not nearly as expensive in terms of energy. And at the same time, Equinox can also lock down enemies entirely, and heal anything that moves (hey Nekros...) plus some that don't. Or, she can provide massive damage multipliers and extra power strength when defensive powers are no longer a priority. In fact, thanks to a certain augment, she can do both. Context. The value a power brings has to be measured in terms of its overall contribution to the efficacy of the frame and the squad, not in isolation. Yes, Trinity is easier to use than Equinox. So is Nova. That doesn't mean they're better than her.

You might rarely, if ever, change forms during a mission. That would explain a lot.

[Aearie]

Changing from day to night form and having to reapply your auras IS clunky. Period. Balance should not preside over game feel.

Rest is more powerful. But it's also far more local, and you have to apply it frequently to affect large waves of enemies. That constant crowd control aura is gone, which makes it a sacrifice to switch from day to night form. By the end of the day, you are sacrificing damage or sustainability, because either you activate Maim or Mend, not both.

As another side note., if you do realize that her aura degrades, then you should have acknowledge as much in your post. It sounded like you didn't understand how the ability worked, which is why I was trying to explain it. Especially when you are then trying to compare it to Blessing.

Also, saying "well I can bring both" doesn't cut it. We are saying whether you would bring Frost or Equinox. Obviously you can have a party bring both, but that doesn't give us any information about which one is better at protecting a defense objective, which is what we are arguing. Frost is flat out better at defending a target, and I'm not going to bother arguing that with you. And that's fine, because Equinox is supposed to be a jack of all trades.

Saying "but it isn't an ult" doesn't mean much in Warframe considering how much we can spam abilities. And Trinity has infinite energy, so saying Pacify is cheaper means absolutely nothing. And yes, Trinity IS better at healing than Equinox, and Nova IS better at crowd control than Equinox. And again, that's fine, but she should be able to also utilize her damage as well to compensate for that, and in a fun manner. Waiting for casting animations instead of actually playing the game isn't my definition of fun.

And no, I don't change forms during a mission unless I absolutely need to (which is rarely). Why? Because it is clunky and awkward and in a game about space ninjas I shouldn't have to be dealing with awkward animations that take too long (even with natural talent) just to have a jack of all trades character. Especially when there are better less frustrating frames I can be playing. Furthermore, I have no incentive to change forms. Sure I can heal someone (awkwardly). Or I can just use a health restore. Because by the time I've changed forms, put on Mend, killed a dude, and then released it, I could have just healed my teammate with a pizza.

Equinox's current design doesn't allow for quick tactical thinking. And Warframe is a high speed game (unless you're Limbo). That is a huge disadvantage for her, along with only be moderately good at cc, healing, and damage. And would she really be overpowered? Nothing you've said has convinced me otherwise, and even if it did, this change would make her much more engaging to play. Something like that is far more important to me in a game like this where the content really isn't that difficult in the first place.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Thursley

[DreamsmithJane]

14 minutes ago, 4RT1LL3RY said:

~Gestures at Vauban's Mine Layer and Ivara's Quiver~

I said "most", and those frames' "extra" powers are similarly less accessible than most. I didn't think I had to spell that out, so I didn't bother. What, if I don't specifically mention irrelevant things, it must mean I don't know about them, and I need to be told? This is just rude, and a waste of time.

17 minutes ago, 4RT1LL3RY said:

Why not just stay day form

Because turning Maim off and on again is just as clunky, and you can't heal anyone in day form. And it's not as if day form Equinox with dead allies is better than night form Equinox with a full, living squad.

23 minutes ago, 4RT1LL3RY said:

Equinox's damage reduction is worthless against the farther enemies who do the most damage, snipers and bombards.

And why did you not place yourself closer to those enemies when running Pacify? In order to protect your squad, you need to be near your enemies. By the way, I'm fairly certain that only the inner quarter of Pacify's radius grants full reduction.

26 minutes ago, 4RT1LL3RY said:

At high levels Ivara beats out Equinox for CC, Damage mitigation, and can do damage at the same time.

Sleep arrows have 44% more area than Rest, true, but Rest is faster, has a longer duration, and can be spread with Calm & Frenzy so you don't have to spam it. This also allows it to be spread while in day form, together with Rage (enemies are faster, but asleep). It just requires a bit of planning.

I would not complain if they removed the decay from Metamorphosis. It's pretty underwhelming. But other than that, she's not nearly as awkward as people keep saying, and she's definitely not underpowered.

[Aearie]

25 minutes ago, DreamsmithJane said:

And why did you not place yourself closer to those enemies when running Pacify? In order to protect your squad, you need to be near your enemies. By the way, I'm fairly certain that only the inner quarter of Pacify's radius grants full reduction.

Moving closer to those enemies makes you further away from the enemies on the opposite side. Unless you are placing Exterminate, you still a problem. Sure, Pacify does have great utility in the slow from Peaceful Provocation, but you then lose it if you want to do damage in day form. And it isn't practical to then switch back and have to rebuild that slow, especially at higher levels. You want that slow immediately, not after taking multiple enemies shots.

This is why being able to switch between the two forms would make her more flexible. Equinox should be able to adapt to the situation, not be rewarded most by being locked into a single form and punished for wanting to use the rest of her utility. It would also make her cons much more reasonable.

[4RT1LL3RY]

8 minutes ago, DreamsmithJane said:

I said "most", and those frames' "extra" powers are similarly less accessible than most. I didn't think I had to spell that out, so I didn't bother. What, if I don't specifically mention irrelevant things, it must mean I don't know about them, and I need to be told? This is just rude, and a waste of time. This is a pot and kettle thing at this point I'll stop point out abilities that you don't mention and you stop insulting me and my ability to do math.  Citations of facts and/or statistics are not meant to insult.

Because turning Maim off and on again is just as clunky, and you can't heal anyone in day form. And it's not as if day form Equinox with dead allies is better than night form Equinox with a full, living squad.

And why did you not place yourself closer to those enemies when running Pacify? In order to protect your squad, you need to be near your enemies. By the way, I'm fairly certain that only the inner quarter of Pacify's radius grants full reduction.  This is why I believe Pacify needs improvements, its inconsistent and situational.  Either lowering enemy alert levels, reducing the target priority of people inside it, etc.  As it is, its only good against melee units. It works fine with a melee build currently, but without the augment it lacks CC.

Sleep arrows have 44% more area than Rest, true, but Rest is faster, has a longer duration, and can be spread with Calm & Frenzy so you don't have to spam it. This also allows it to be spread while in day form, together with Rage (enemies are faster, but asleep). It just requires a bit of planning.

I would not complain if they removed the decay from Metamorphosis. It's pretty underwhelming. But other than that, she's not nearly as awkward as people keep saying, and she's definitely not underpowered.  

I do not believe Equinox is underpowered, but she could be better.  Its just certain abilities are very lack luster.  Rage makes enemies attack faster as well as move fast when they take more damage, if they just moved faster it would be better for the squad and lower trolling potential.  Sleep is good, higher range and lower duration would be more useful most of the time though in my experience.

Pacify with just the single value for damage reduction throughout would make it way more consistent, or make the slow from the augment an innate part of the ability.  Provoke is just a cast and forget ability, its a useful ability for min-maxing power strength but being an inversion of Pacify would probably fit better.  Making Provoke increase enemy movement speed(but not attack speed) in the radius and take more damage would be more useful then giving allies free Power Strength, if they did something like that Rage would work better as a Chaos-esqe power that lowers enemies accuracy a massive amount or makes them keep switching targets.

Mend is just pretty bland currently and it doesn't provide a reason to keep it active, making it more like Inverted Maim and having it provide heal over time from the pool from hurting enemies would make it worth keeping up.

Equinox is basically defined by Maim currently, its an interesting ability that scales with enemy level and is strong, besides Sleep, and Mend just about everything else is pretty forgettable as abilities go.

 

Take this Idea for example.  It keeps all abilities except Metamorphosis the same.  Rest and Rage become 1.  Pacify and Provoke become 2.  Mend and Maim become 3.  Metamorphosis becomes the ultimate.  If you are not currently 'Balanced', Metamorphosis just switches forms with the buffs as it currently does.  If you are 'Balanced', by either using a certain number of abilities or damage in each form, then Metamorphosis makes it so you are in the combined form of Day and Night form for the duration of it with the normal buffs from both forms and effects from both Night and Day abilities apply with each casting.  So Rest and Rage puts enemies to sleep and boosts dmg on them.  Pacify and Provoke gives DR and gives bonus power strength.  Mend and Maim hurts enemies and heals you and allies when released.  After the duration is up your Balance meter would shift all the way towards the form you were changing into.

[Ciaus]

I like  lot of these ideas, especially Mend having some actual value while active and not just on release. 

[DreamsmithJane]

17 hours ago, 4RT1LL3RY said:

This is a pot and kettle thing at this point I'll stop point out abilities that you don't mention and you stop insulting me and my ability to do math.

It really isn't. The math you neglected is relevant. Quiver and Minelayer are not. You showed up quoting and responding to me, so I do get to be annoyed at your bringing up things that don't matter just to be argumentative. I'm going to place you on ignore, now, so we don't waste any more of our time or the boards' space. Have fun sharing your opinions. Just leave me out of it.

[Aearie]

8 hours ago, DreamsmithJane said:

It really isn't. The math you neglected is relevant. Quiver and Minelayer are not. You showed up quoting and responding to me, so I do get to be annoyed at your bringing up things that don't matter just to be argumentative. I'm going to place you on ignore, now, so we don't waste any more of our time or the boards' space. Have fun sharing your opinions. Just leave me out of it.

Quiver and Minelayer are absolutely relevant when comparing Equinox's utility with other frames. Quiver especially provides multiple types of support and isn't anywhere near as clunky as having to change forms and then cast the skill in question. Also, your point was that Equinox having more accessible powers than other frames would make her overpowered, which Minelayer proves is not the case. Having more options does not automatically equal more power.

[4RT1LL3RY]

48 minutes ago, Thursley said:

Quiver and Minelayer are absolutely relevant when comparing Equinox's utility with other frames. Quiver especially provides multiple types of support and isn't anywhere near as clunky as having to change forms and then cast the skill in question. Also, your point was that Equinox having more accessible powers than other frames would make her overpowered, which Minelayer proves is not the case. Having more options does not automatically equal more power.

Exactly.  Ivara and Vauban also have seven abilities.  But they have easier access to them and more of them are good.  

With Equinox, Maim is amazing while Mend is Situational, pacify and provoke are just always active passive buffs decent normally but good with the augment, rage is situational while Sleep is amazing, metamorphosis is a required ability with decent buffs that are lackluster due to the fact the buffs decay.  2 amazing abilities, 2 good abilities when Augments are included for Pacify and Provoke, 2 situation, 1 barely an ability.  Night Form has 1 amazing, 1 good with augment, 1 situational.  Day form has 1 amazing, 1 good with augment, 1 situational.

Ivara's Cloak arrow is amazing, Sleep Arrow is amazing, Noise arrow is eh, Zipline arrow is surprisingly useful, Prowl is amazing, Navigator is too situational for normal stuff but pairs well with noise arrow, and Artemis bow is another amazing Exalted Weapon.  4 amazing abilities. 1 good ability, 2 situational abilities.

Vauban's Tesla grenades are ok, Bounce mines are ok, Trip lasers mines are ok but beaten by Bastille, Shred Mines are great, Concuss mines are great, Bastille is amazing, and Vortex is amazing.  2 amazing abilities, 2 great abilities, 3 situational abilities.  Amazing Augments.

Unlike Ivara and Vauban, Equinox can't use two amazing abilities easily at the same time and Provoke's bonus is barely an ability even though its very nice to have for a squad.

Looking at Equinox the simplest way to even up Day and Night's ability list is if Metamorphosis was good or didn't ruin build up.  Short press on 1 to change form as normal, Long Press on 1 to do something with Hybrid Equinox's form.  There are tons of options for improving Equinox.

[TheChaotic1]

There is not doubt for me that both forms of box are sortie capable.

That's not the problem, being good doesn't excuse the frame for not working as intended. Decay needs to be removed from all her abilities, maim needs a nerf, mend needs a buff, and resources need to swap.

Decay: Nox's abilities need to stop having fall off. I would gladly sacrifice potency for that, since most of the time people get half of it anyway. And honestly why do her metamorphosis buffs have a timer? They could last the whole mission and it wouldn't be OP.

Maim: No clue. Needs to be weaker, maybe you lose stacks every energy tick?

Mend: Opposite of maim, could give status immunity and gain stacks per tick maybe rejuvenation.

Stacks: Just let 25% of the resource pool swap, increased with power strength

 

Edited January 25, 2017 by TheChaotic1

[Red_Bones]

If all the banter suggests anything, it is that:
- Equinox can be compared to other frames, because you can never use all of her abilities concurrently, and you are punished for switching forms by losing built up charge and you therefore do not. (mentioned by various/numerous)
- In her current form, she only really has 3 abilities, as her first is just a replacement for the ability to switch between ability options as per Ivara and Vauban. (@4RT1LL3RY)
- 1 becomes 4, 2 becomes 1, 3 becomes 2, 4 becomes 3, and switching forms transfers the charge built up in one form the other. Switching can potentially halve the amount/percentage of charge built up for balancing reasons, but if metamorphosis is her fourth, then the cast cost may make up for the utility being able to switch brings, and the halving of charge may be unnecessary. (@4RT1LL3RY)
- Warframes like Ivara and Vauban have about as many abilities as Equinox, except more of them are good, they're predominantly better than Equinox's and they're far easier to access. (@4RT1LL3RY)
- Her abilities, especially Pacify, should not decrease with range - even if that is at the cost of potency - because people rarely huddle together and almost always get 50% of the effect because of their limited proximity. (@TheChaotic1)
- Ember's world on fire can continue to function even when she has been downed, as long as she has the energy to sustain it; especially as Equinox has to take damage or have had to been killing people for a long time to gain her charge, it switching off when downed is a massive hindrance, and requires you to play especially carefully or build for durability. They should stay on if energy is available. (@4RT1LL3RY)
- Potentially faster and more fluid animations would make switching forms more worthwhile, as you most often build for one aspect of day or night, and rarely both. Metamorphosis which isn't an affliction would make switching over for the occasional requirement of the other form engaging. (@Thursley)
- And more I may have missed.
- Please make sure to UP VOTE the original post if you agree with anything here or anything from the original post! Equinox isn't popular, and that can be changed!

Edited February 1, 2017 by Red_Bones