Zephyr should be good; a fix thread ::Edit 7th September::

[MuscleBeach]

I haven't played much Zephyr, though I'd like to try her out more. There's a good chance she is our next prime frame/reworked frame as she's next in line chronologically. So now's a good time to throw some ideas around even though I'm not too experienced with her yet. 

1) Tailwind: Let it use an ability "Combo Counter" like Atlas's Landslide. The idea behind this is that she would be building up in speed, increasing damage with each cast and reducing cost with each cast. Allow it to pass through enemies, knocking them down. Casting it always sends you in the direction of your targeting reticle, even while standing on the ground. Hitting the ground (or wall) causes a small shock wave, knocking down people. This allows you to have a much more movement based combat style and feeds right into Dive Bomb. 

2) Dive Bomb: Dive Bomb's damage would be multiplied by the combo counter from Tailwind but also ends the combo. It's damage and blast radius can stay the same but should be multiplied based on the Combo Counter. Give a small shield or reduced enemy accuracy when targeting Zephyr when she casts Dive Bomb, based on her damage. It doesn't need to be a long shield nor affected by mods. That will give her the defense she needs from the recovery animation from Dive Bomb while making some sense. Bigger slam, more debri, harder to be hit with obstacles in the way. It's a small stretch but it's flavorful and functional. Also, Dive Bomb should deal 3% of the maximum health of the targets Maximum health and also scale with the Combo Counter (Combo is at 4x then it will do 12% max health). This should change Nose Dive into what it should be, a Dive Bomb.

3) Turbulence: Fix its bugs. Maybe make its duration increase with every cast of Tailwind by 1 or 2 sec, affected by power strength? Totally unnecessary but I like adding synergies.  

4) Tornado: Too inexperienced with Zephyr to give good ideas on this.

These changes would allow Zephyr to fly in and out of combat with Tailwind, which sounds very fitting for her frame. Tailwind would also help fuel Dive Bomb and its scaling damage. I think it's important to start giving frames some form of high lvl scaling damage, otherwise we're going to be here preaching (again) how Zephyr needs a rework because she falls off at high lvls. 

 

What do you guys think? 

Edited November 2, 2017 by MuscleBeach
Typos

[Yistern]

You know, with how her fourth would work with this set of ideas, I think it would be excellent to add onto its FX to include a storm cloud above the cast location, appearing in a flash at the start of the ability, and continuing to occasionally spout cosmetic lightning while the ability lasts. The cosmetic effects of her prime could range from a golden thunderhead to larger, flashier bolts, to more visually impressive tornadoes, and the size of the thunderhead could be affected by ability range as well if it were implemented.

Her Tailwind could be more visually impressive as well.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

Is there a chance we get a reveal today?

[Caelward]

There was always a chance, but it never happened Ren.

[Kuva_Noodle]

I joined Warframe in 2014, update 14 right after Mirage dropped, I saw Zephyr, and immediately had to have her, all I want is to have her be comparable to ANY of the modern Warframes, and the listed changes would bring her up to a better level.

But if I may make a suggestion for tornado: An animated bit where the enemy is trapped in the tornado much like Hydroids tentacle swarm?

[Caelward]

@Thaylien

I wonder if there is power budget with that Tailwind charge for divebomb idea of yours for something a little more.

Basically, allow that charge to boost her ips damage types while she's airborne. Ideally it would enhance primary, secondary and melee weapons so you can take that floaty time of hers to dish out some enhanced damage with whatever weapon you are using. Extra power strength might grant extra damage buff.

I know I've become rather good at hitting floaty enemies with her airborne melee dash, partly due to the extra hangtime she gets. I've also taken to constantly using tailwind to put myself back in the air in the Plains. Makes it much easier to use explosive weapons. I'll boost into the air, send down some explosive love, then come smashing down with my Jat Kittag. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. It's been pretty fun.

Edited November 3, 2017 by Caelward

[Birdframe_Prime]

On 02/11/2017 at 11:42 PM, MuscleBeach said:

I haven't played much Zephyr, though I'd like to try her out more.

What a lot of new people ^^ Welcome, welcome.

Now, some of your points I'd like to think I've already addressed. Tailwind might benefit from the multi-cast bonus, that might be a thing, but the rest... the scaling I've put on Dive Bomb already with these changes would make it immensely better for damage, adding bonus on top of bonus doesn't really improve anything.

It's much like damage overall, crowd control lasts longer and combo better with frames and abilities that reduce time-to-kill.

So there's two sides. We'll have to see ^^

And welcome to @Yistern and @The-Astral-Dragon too. Visual improvements are always fun, we saw them with Hydroid and Oberon, there's no reason we wouldn't see them on Zephyr too.

As for @Caelward, eh, maybe. Never know ^^

[MuscleBeach]

5 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Now, some of your points I'd like to think I've already addressed. Tailwind might benefit from the multi-cast bonus, that might be a thing, but the rest... the scaling I've put on Dive Bomb already with these changes would make it immensely better for damage, adding bonus on top of bonus doesn't really improve anything.

If you're referring to adding melee mods to Dive Bomb, I don't think that's a good solution. It would definitely work but it doesn't make any sense to do this. It's not a weapon attack. It's a warframe slamming into the ground at high speeds. They would also have to make the skill / animation use your melee weapon and I doubt that is going to happen. So with that said, I still stick by my suggestions of Tailwind Comboing into Dive Bomb with some damage and blast radius scaling based on the combo. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, MuscleBeach said:

If you're referring to adding melee mods to Dive Bomb, I don't think that's a good solution. It would definitely work but it doesn't make any sense to do this. It's not a weapon attack. It's a warframe slamming into the ground at high speeds. They would also have to make the skill / animation use your melee weapon and I doubt that is going to happen. So with that said, I still stick by my suggestions of Tailwind Comboing into Dive Bomb with some damage and blast radius scaling based on the combo. 

Well, no, that's not the part I meant. On the other hand, the equipped weapon mods effecting an ability is not exactly rare, and an animation change wouldn't go amiss for her either (people have been asking for a super-hero landing, smashing the ground rather than a concussion-inducing suicide dive). However. It was only one of the two solutions I proposed.

The other solution I proposed was a very simple tweak to the multiplier which would actually have a better effect overall. Basically the current calculation for Dive Bomb is a straight height = multiplier function, I would change it so that the multiplier also increases in proportion to your height.

It's a little dry, but here's the base equation as it is now ( Height x 0.2 ) x Base Damage = Dive Bomb Damage. Which means that if we were at neutral strength, the base damage is 250, and we can say that at 30m, which is a decent height, this would make the damage (30 x 0.2) x 250 = 1500. That's not really all that great, right? Even at 200% power strength that's still only 3k damage.

So here's the option, we multiply it by the same again, not quite making it a 100% scaling, but even just a tiny multiplier for the multiplier. Try ( Height x 0.1 ) x ( Height x 0.2 ) x Base Damage = Dive Bomb Damage. That's a little more of a multiplier, right? So the same neutral strength, at the same height? That's (30 x 0.1) x (30 x 0.2) x 250 = 4500 Which is automatically 3x the damage. At 200% power strength that's 9000 damage straight off the bat.

It's not amazing damage, from low range it's barely more at all (stick in 15m and the difference between the two is 750 now and 1125 changed, not impressive) but Zephyr's never really been about the damage. It does, however, reward Zephyr far, far more for getting the height when you're able to. The reliability I've added, and the aim option, should cover the rest of the problems by making that knockdown guaranteed on every enemy (that isn't a Boss) and allowing you to specifically pick that problem group of enemies that you really want to knock down.

And, more to my point, the reliable knock down is what would mean you don't need to implement some kind of damage evasion or resistance frames to the animation, because you can just shorten the recovery by a half second and you're on your feet, firing or using melee, before the enemy knows what's hit them. It's pretty much a guaranteed opening for melee ground finishers, if you want to think of it like that.

But think about if DE were to tweak that equation a little more, you could put any number in there. Just make it so that there's a double multiplier on the height you gain, and we're gold for direct damage. Swap out that 0.1 in the extra multiplier for a 0.3, and we'd get 13,500 damage from 30m at neutral strength. Crazy, right? That's all DE would have to do for damage, is tweak that single equation. See?

Thoughts?

[Sasuda]

I only have 1 thing I really disagree on, and that's zephyr's heavy landing penalty. She shouldn't have it.
Other than that I'm pretty much all on board.
Actually Divebomb doing melee*height*height is also too much. Especially as a second ability that could have range over 30m. I like scaling but if Zephyr's 2 gets that I expect Rhino's Stomp to at least have the potential to compete with that kind of damage. Having the potential to do 210,000 damage over 30m with guaranteed knockdown might not be a common situation but that could exist on a 2 is just way out of the ball park ((Height x 0.1) + (Height x 0.2)) x Minimum Damage will give you a much more reasonable approach. Still not sure if this would need melee mod scaling though.
That's all.

[Caelward]

1 hour ago, Sasuda said:

I only have 1 thing I really disagree on, and that's zephyr's heavy landing penalty. She shouldn't have it.
Other than that I'm pretty much all on board.
Actually Divebomb doing melee*height*height is also too much. Especially as a second ability that could have range over 30m. I like scaling but if Zephyr's 2 gets that I expect Rhino's Stomp to at least have the potential to compete with that kind of damage. Having the potential to do 210,000 damage over 30m with guaranteed knockdown might not be a common situation but that could exist on a 2 is just way out of the ball park ((Height x 0.1) + (Height x 0.2)) x Minimum Damage will give you a much more reasonable approach. Still not sure if this would need melee mod scaling though.
That's all.

As far as that damage being 'too much'. Its quite easy to adjust the numbers if something isn't reasonable.

Her Dive-bomb still takes some set-up to do all that potential damage, and then it's just a knockdown. Rhino's stomp isn't something to sneeze at itself, more important, the CC effects of his stomp are better than divebomb and can be modded to be better yet. Freezing a batch of enemies in the air that can be easily destroyed by anyone in the vicinity is fantastic CC. And he does it on demand, in a split second. This is extremely valuable.

[Sasuda]

1 hour ago, Caelward said:

As far as that damage being 'too much'. Its quite easy to adjust the numbers if something isn't reasonable.

Her Dive-bomb still takes some set-up to do all that potential damage, and then it's just a knockdown. Rhino's stomp isn't something to sneeze at itself, more important, the CC effects of his stomp are better than divebomb and can be modded to be better yet. Freezing a batch of enemies in the air that can be easily destroyed by anyone in the vicinity is fantastic CC. And he does it on demand, in a split second. This is extremely valuable.

I'm not saying Rhino's Stomp is bad by any means, it's great I'm just saying that this proposed divebomb is to an extent comparable. And when they are compared it's worth noting that Rhino's ability is a fourth, without movement utility, has to be casted on ground, costs 100 energy, base damage of 800, range of 25m, and lasts 8 seconds. Rhino is a damage dealing tank at his core motif. Even maxing his damage output including Roar doesn't put out numbers as high as this divebomb could, which won't be problem if  Zephyr's ability doesn't have comparable CC, Damage, and range all in two abilities. (I say two because including Roar + Stomp with Tailwind + Divebomb)
This proposal pretty clearly would be only very, slightly less range and CC. Yes Rhino can get way bigger range and CC but it costs a lot more for Rhino. This divebomb would maintain big damage, range and CC without nearly the cost if it can use melee mods.
I'm just saying it very clearly doesn't need that level of damage boost given it's other benefits of being relatively low cost, aimable and with travel utility, castable anywhere, hard CC and synergy with Tail Wind.

Rewarding extra height is really great, but overall I'd still rather see it apply to Range or duration of stun than damage for Zephyr.

tldr; I want Divebomb to be good, not Rhino Stomp good (or better) good Damage + light CC > good CC + light damage

Edited November 16, 2017 by Sasuda

[Caelward]

1 hour ago, Sasuda said:

tldr; I want Divebomb to be good, not Rhino Stomp good (or better) good Damage + light CC > good CC + light damage

 

Nothing wrong with that. That's why I started off that post with 'Its quite easy to adjust the numbers if something isn't reasonable'.

I'm just saying that there's a difference between an ability being powerful with a single button click as opposed to an ability being powerful when you have to take several seconds and multiple inputs in the right terrain to set-up. That alone is worth something when considering the power budget of an ability.

Anyways, no matter how good the rework thread, I can't imaging the Devs using the suggested numbers. Ever.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Caelward

[Sasuda]

Just now, Caelward said:

 

Nothing wrong with that. That's why I started off that post with 'Its quite easy to adjust the numbers if something isn't reasonable'.

I'm just saying that there's a difference between an ability being kick-&#! with a single button click as opposed to an ability being kickass when you have to take several seconds and multiple inputs in the right terrain to set-up. That alone is worth something when considering the power budget of an ability.

Anyways, no matter how good the rework thread, I can't imaging the Devs using the suggested numbers. Ever.

Fair enough, although "you have to take several seconds and multiple inputs in the right terrain to set-up." I mean you can put it that way but considering it would actually be good with just 1 button press, a nearly instant hard AOE CC is pretty great for the energy cost even around 7m. Performing from air is also a really good advantage in terms of available terrain. And multiple inputs being a low cost first ability with it's own CC that zones your enemies to setup for a divebomb, which also has an augment to setup to repeat this combo... I mean I have considered it. That's why I don't think it needs the damage. And again this ability is comparable with 2 low cost casts to one that is two high cost casts (more than double the energy). Not to mention Rhino's Roar doesn't do anything on cast (it can Puncture proc with Augment, but that's nothing to what the Divebomb Augment offers to the setup), unlike the Tailwind. More or less I'm saying it's already kickass without the damage, or even without the tailwind setup too.
And yes, lol you're right. I'm pointing out something that's fairly obvious I know. It's mostly intended for the Original Poster to scale back a little bit. He seems to pay attention and think about what others are saying.

[Birdframe_Prime]

3 hours ago, Sasuda said:

And yes, lol you're right. I'm pointing out something that's fairly obvious I know. It's mostly intended for the Original Poster to scale back a little bit. He seems to pay attention and think about what others are saying.

I do try ^^ Thanks for stopping in, I really appreciate it!

And yeah, numbers can be played with, it's getting the particular point across to any stat-oriented players/DE that one of the fixes could be a simple addition to the equation. Implementing melee mod multipliers may be too much, that's specifically there because it's been so frequently suggested as a potential fix for the ability's damage.

The reason that I don't think the combination of mods plus the extra scaling factor is over the limit would be Nova. A squishy caster frame that has the most damaging flat-damage ability, plus more with the combination of double-damage and further explosion damage from her other cast, in the game on her 2. Anti-Matter Drop is capable of storing 400,000 damage in each orb, can be charged up to that with a single click from a Sancti Tigris or a couple of clicks from another shotgun, and can be launched at a rate of one every 4 seconds. When you consider that as your high-end... I think something that needs both a melee mod setup optimised for doing damage through the ability, not through the weapon, a strength mod setup on the frame, and a setup of leaping 30m into the air, especially considering the amount of Tiles that do not allow this, would be enough of a cost.

But again, not for me to decide. I personally prefer the multiplier. Think what kind of mischief you could get up to if the base multiplier scaled faster than the height modifier scaled the base damage. Say... (H x 0.25) x (H x 0.2) x Base Damage? You'd end up with a 15m damage of 2,812.5 with Neutral strength, and a 30m damage of 11,250. I mean... that's not chump-change, especially when you can get to 200% Strength without terribly damaging her other casts, you can still get a 46 second Turbulence with that, for example.

As to your other point, the soft landing as part of her passive... I would have, I really would have.

Except that it's already another frame's passive. And DE don't make passives that way. If DE were to change Valkyr's passive, then sure! I would support this.

For now, I feel we can make do with the non-hard-landing function as part of Tailwind, which makes it more of a 'skill' to her movement the same as knowing that a slide or right click for aim-glide can stop hard landings too.

[Sasuda]

9 minutes ago, Thaylien said:

I do try ^^ Thanks for stopping in, I really appreciate it!

And yeah, numbers can be played with, it's getting the particular point across to any stat-oriented players/DE that one of the fixes could be a simple addition to the equation. Implementing melee mod multipliers may be too much, that's specifically there because it's been so frequently suggested as a potential fix for the ability's damage.

The reason that I don't think the combination of mods plus the extra scaling factor is over the limit would be Nova. A squishy caster frame that has the most damaging flat-damage ability, plus more with the combination of double-damage and further explosion damage from her other cast, in the game on her 2. Anti-Matter Drop is capable of storing 400,000 damage in each orb, can be charged up to that with a single click from a Sancti Tigris or a couple of clicks from another shotgun, and can be launched at a rate of one every 4 seconds. When you consider that as your high-end... I think something that needs both a melee mod setup optimised for doing damage through the ability, not through the weapon, a strength mod setup on the frame, and a setup of leaping 30m into the air, especially considering the amount of Tiles that do not allow this, would be enough of a cost.

But again, not for me to decide. I personally prefer the multiplier. Think what kind of mischief you could get up to if the base multiplier scaled faster than the height modifier scaled the base damage. Say... (H x 0.25) x (H x 0.2) x Base Damage? You'd end up with a 15m damage of 2,812.5 with Neutral strength, and a 30m damage of 11,250. I mean... that's not chump-change, especially when you can get to 200% Strength without terribly damaging her other casts, you can still get a 46 second Turbulence with that, for example.

As to your other point, the soft landing as part of her passive... I would have, I really would have.

Except that it's already another frame's passive. And DE don't make passives that way. If DE were to change Valkyr's passive, then sure! I would support this.

For now, I feel we can make do with the non-hard-landing function as part of Tailwind, which makes it more of a 'skill' to her movement the same as knowing that a slide or right click for aim-glide can stop hard landings too.

I appreciate the response, and enjoy hearing the thoughts.
I see, while Nova can do ridiculous damage she doesn't have Turbulence though. Adding lots of damage to Zephyr is fun I get it. I just don't think it's necessary given the rest of her kit. Nova is one of the few frames that still can get away without a rework. Anti-matter also isn't the easiest to control ability. Weapon based synergies are also a whole other breed. Anti Matter drop can store a lot of damage but just shooting a Sancti-Tigris also does a ton of Damage. Anti matter also doesn't have built in crowd control like this Divebomb would. Although given it's damage output it doesn't need to, fair. But again huge Damage is what Nova is for, Zephyr is a pretty crowd control centered frame. I think it's best to let her do that, rather than be pretty darn tanky with mutiple big damage, AOE, hard CC abilities. Antimatter Drop is a really different sort of ability that relies a lot on weapons where as Zephyr is bound to do better with versatility in the first place, so I can't really consider that as the high end given the nature of them being so different. That setup also demands high MR and a decent set of mods. Zephyr definitely is way faster than Nova at putting out Divebombs and moving enemies around. Her 1 does do quite a bit of work especially in the Divebomb combo. With Tornados wreaking havoc.
As far as Zephyr's setup, cranking the damage on a melee is something you always want so there's no loss there really, especially when it's not weapon based like Anti-Matter Drop is. Her high movement speed also won't hurt her in her ascent, along with adding Tail Wind CC and slash damage, and not a ton of tiles allow for 30m but there's quite a few. Not all tiles are great for moving Anti-matter Drop either, it also requires to absorb damage that would otherwise be dealt to enemies and really requires a player to slow down a lot to pull off. Maintaining movement speed is massive in Warframe and Zephyr's easily among the best at it.
This ability is a lot harder to compare to Anti-matter Drop than Rhino Stomp for me, so I kind of have to default to that comparison in terms of thoughts on how much damage this should do. And I can't think of a circumstance where Divebomb should outclass Rhino Stomp for damage. Maybe Rhino could use a little room for increased damage on Stomp but I'm pretty content with it so I don't think Divebomb needs it.

Another more like comparison is Frost's Ice Wave which also doesn't lay those kinds of damage. I think this comparison is better again because it's mostly a crowd control that deals alright damage. It has no synergies, it's fast castable from air but doesn't have hard CC, it can't stun-lock, and reduces rather than extends travel capacities. It trades that for a far reaching and decent Augment. The area it covers would actually be fairly similar due to the shape of a cone vs. a circle. Ice wave's base max is 700 and maxes out at 2200.

Valkyrs passives are actually quite good. I don't think it's be a big deal for passives to have minor overlap, and Valkyr good have her passive altered. She could just have various faster exit animations, whether sliding, slamming, etc. It's really minor to me other than thematically Zephyr ought not be the one frame to have a heavy landing because ground level would theoretically be where she's lightest given Oxiums properties. But yeah I can agree that it's not necessary.

Rewarding height is my much much preferred option but I'd be pretty satisfied without it hitting 2,000 without mods. With mods big drops should be dealing under 3,000 anywhere over 3,000 is really pushing it in my opinion. Zephyr just doesn't need it. Besides I'd rather see her height rewarded in larger radius or longer knockdown than damage personally. I mean drop 30m for a max 40m 5s stun? I think that'd feel real good locking down a room that way. I think even that's pretty excessive though.

Anyway hopefully lots of these ideas do come through. I like the thought of keeping abilities and remastering over rebuilding her entire kit.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Oh, I'd never say that Zephyr was a damage frame, no, but Dive Bomb has always been 'potential' damage. Where if you got the height, you could deal the damage. That's why my thoughts are that, if you're going to have an ability that deals damage, it had better be something that actually deals work-able damage. Not amazing damage, no, just something that will have an effect on level 30 enemies, rather than level 5.

(I'll also point out that the Tigris genuinely can't deal as much damage to an enemy as a Nova bomb can, in terms of raw damage numbers, a well modded and consistently cast AMD will put out more damage than anything in the game. While some things scale over time to more damage, and while some abilities do 'effective damage' by removing armour, which has the 'effective damage' of removing several million health from a high level enemy... in actual dps nothing beats what a Nova AMD can do. But this isn't the thread for that discussion.)

1 hour ago, Sasuda said:

Anyway hopefully lots of these ideas do come through. I like the thought of keeping abilities and remastering over rebuilding her entire kit.

The reason this thread exists is simple, there was an interview at one of the conventions this year, Tennocon or Pax (I can't track down the video evidence, I think it was streamed...) DE made a statement that warframes aren't getting new abilities in their reworks, that they want to keep warframes within the constraint of their original designs and abilities.

Which I would say is based on the massive uproar from Limbo (where they had to do so much testing, programming, design, more testing, then implemented it and suffered the backlash of all the players who wanted something different, who didn't like the new Limbo and wanted him reverted, the bugs, the exploits, the legitimate feedback, the hotfixing, the trial and error... everything.

Compare that to the Oberon version, where they just updated his abilities, adjusted the mechanics of how they took effect, and then released him to the wild to get feedback, and what they had to fix when the feedback came in was incredibly minor. People didn't like the forced synergy where players had to be standing on Hallowed Ground at the exact point of casting Renewal in order to get the Iron Renewal armour buff. They fixed it so that anyone affected by Renewal could just run over any Hallowed Ground area and receive it, and... Ta-dah! A better Oberon. People didn't like that Smite had no base damage, only percentage damage, meaning that the ability got actively worse the lower the level of the enemy was, unable to kill a level 1 enemy. Fixed to have a base damage plus the percentage of max health. Add to that the armour stripping if enemies are on HG when you cast Reckoning... Oberon became way more... Oberon XD

Even Hydroid, a bit of a Marmite/Vegemite frame anyway (you either love him or you don't), they made him more viable as himself. People don't like the puddle, it's true, and some people love the puddle. But you can't deny that the puddle is now very, very effective, with the ramping damage, the ability to pull in new enemies in a very, very large area with tentacles, the really, really interesting synergy with his Corroding Barrage augment... The ability to move around while in his puddle with Tidal Surge... These are all things that make Hydroid more Hydroid-y, and actually very effective when you play that style of play.

So based on all these, I'm hoping that DE take what's Zephyr about Zephyr and make that better.

How that turns out? Yeah, we'll see.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

Why would I want to gain height to slam into enemies to stun them, when I'm already immune to ranged attacks and I also have further enemy evasiveness while I'm above them?

Dive-bomb should be damage first, CC second. It could easily be like Equinox where damage diminishes over distance. Also, armor comes into play with keeping absurd amounts of damage neutralized. Unless we're talking about Nova of course.

[Azamagon]

2 hours ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

Why would I want to gain height to slam into enemies to stun them, when I'm already immune to ranged attacks and I also have further enemy evasiveness while I'm above them?

Dive-bomb should be damage first, CC second. It could easily be like Equinox where damage diminishes over distance. Also, armor comes into play with keeping absurd amounts of damage neutralized. Unless we're talking about Nova of course.

This is my PoV too. The damage doesn't have to be worldending, but a high-height Divebomb should honestly put at least a massive dent on sortie-level enemies, even the armoured Grineer.

4 hours ago, Sasuda said:

Another more like comparison is Frost's Ice Wave which also doesn't lay those kinds of damage. I think this comparison is better again because it's mostly a crowd control that deals alright damage. It has no synergies, it's fast castable from air but doesn't have hard CC, it can't stun-lock, and reduces rather than extends travel capacities. It trades that for a far reaching and decent Augment. The area it covers would actually be fairly similar due to the shape of a cone vs. a circle. Ice wave's base max is 700 and maxes out at 2200.

(Warning: A rather long "rant" incoming about kit issues in WF, which I hope sheds some light on something I personally find to be a cripplingly big issue in regards to many Warframe's ability-designs)

 

Frost Wave - Well, this ability is flawed due to what it (doesn't) bring to his kit. (And you honestly think 700 cold damage is alright damage in current WF?! Sorry, but no. Just no.)

I mean, look at his kit:
* He has Freeze as the longrange onehanded quickcast CC + Globe-shattering tool (which honestly could be a better ability as well, like having AoE freeze, and the patch spawning regardless of where it hits)
* Then there's Avalanche which is slower to cast, but causes a big range AoE freeze and armor-reduction.
* Then there is his Snow Globe, packed with content: Defends from ranged attacks, slows enemies inside AND pushes enemies out on cast with superscaling damage.
* But Ice Wave? Well, unaugmented (note that my opinion is that augments should NOT be necessary to make abilities worthy of casting) it doesn't really add much to his kit (besides being an air-castable ability). If Snow Globe DIDN'T push out enemies on cast, but Ice Wave was the ability to push away frozen enemies, it'd have a clear use in his kit. And/or, if it did more damage, and MUCH more so against frozen enemies, it could maybe become a semi-decent flat damage-nuke (too). Just so it doesn't feel redundant, you know?

Going back to Zephyr, Dive Bomb becoming much better as a CC-tool feels like it runs the risk of causing a kit redundancy issue, considering she already has Tornado (which definitely needs improving too, ofc) which, I presume, currently is intended to be the main CC-tool in her kit.
Sure, you could make Dive Bomb be much better as a CC-tool, but then Tornado would most likely be outclassed in that regard, and would then need to have another purpose (like... doing good damage? Or debuffing even better?). Yeah, you could argue that their current CC-niches are "complimentary", but there are two ways of doing that:

1) Complimentary in the way of 2 (or more) abilities doing the same job, but simply filling the gaps of the other abilities flaws. This is currently the case of Divebomb and Tornado, because Divebomb CC's all enemies in its radius, but is very shortlasting, while Tornadoes only takes a few enemies out, but lasts long to compensate. (Which is a similar issue as Tempest Barrage versus Tentacle Swarm is having, but they have other facets too, although sadly, BOTH of those differences can only be clearly seen via augments. Urgh!)

or

2) Complimentary in the way of focusing on doing 2 entirely different jobs. Such as Divebomb focusing on dealing damage, and Tornado focusing on awesome CC and debuffing (or vice versa). They can still have tiny overlaps as extra features (like Divebomb having the short CC with its knockdown, or Tornado doing meager flat damage), that's fine imo, because are just sidebonuses, not their main jobs.
And considering that Tornado already does lengthy CC (although hinderingly), does some ok debuffing with status-effects and has drawnout damage, while Divebomb has a short CC, and a supposed "damage reward"-mechanism (i.e. higher fall height = higher damage), along with also being the tool that makes her the most vulnerable afterwards (due to grounding her), wouldn't it make the most sense to strengthen those facets? I.e. make Tornado better at CC, and Divebomb better at damage?

So yeah, I find design #2 a really good and fun design, but design #1 is imo a complete waste of ability-design, if they do NOTHING ELSE than "flaw-complimenting" unaugmented. For example, I'd be sorta fine with Tempest Barrage and Tentacle Swarm doing similar jobs (zone CC, with flat damage) if their augments were baseline effects, i.e providing armorstripping vs lootbonus (and even that is too meagre of a difference imo). An ability's main purpose should NOT become clear ONLY once you have installed an augment in it. Because, that means that if you run with no augments (which imo should be a viable strategy), you only use the best of those abilities, all the time, and become less likely to use both together. Then it just feels like one (or more) of the abilities is pretty much just a waste of space, instead of doing something distinct for said Warframe and its kit. That Warframe, to me, feels incomplete!

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Azamagon

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

33 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

-Snip-

This is exactly what I'm trying to avoid with Zephyr. I called it the Vauban Effect.

When all of your kit does the same thing people will just use the moose effective version of it.

I don't particularly agree with your Frost example though. Ice Wave causes slow or cold proc (one of the two) slowing enemies down. It's the AoE Equivalent of Ice Ball but different enough to have its own positioning. 

I specifically use it for things like Hijack missions LoR where Bubbling the pads protects teammates in their stationary positions while ice Wave is a CC AOE limiting enemies movement further.

Edited November 16, 2017 by (PS4)RenovaKunumaru

[Azamagon]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

1) This is exactly what I'm trying to avoid with Zephyr. I called it the Vauban Effect.

When all of your kit does the same thing people will just use the moose effective version of it.

2) I don't particularly agree with your Frost example though. Ice Wave causes slow or cold proc (one of the two) slowing enemies down. It's the AoE Equivalent of Ice Ball but different enough to have its own positioning. 

I specifically use it for things like Hijack missions LoR where Bubbling the pads protects teammates in their stationary positions while ice Wave is a CC AOE limiting enemies movement further.

1) EXACTLY! Vauban is one of the worst in that regard, for sure (But is not beyond fixing, see my quoted post in the spoiler below for some ideas!)

2) Question: Why aren't you using Avalanche though? It's hard CC (which protects better) and a 360 degree cast. Is it because Ice Wave can be cast while airgliding?

Regardless, when an unaugmented ability is only useful in REALLY niched areas, it needs improvements too imo.

 

On 2017-09-26 at 5:15 PM, Azamagon said:

OP, you bring up a lot of good points.

To address some of your issues:

1) Squishiness
This would be more or less fine if he could actually create defensive perimeters (akin to Volt or Frost). While not necessarily true for most maps, which are rather confined, this flaw will indeed show up a lot in PoE.

2) Many bad abilities
I'd add that Vauban is one of those frames who is among the worst in regards to kit reduncancy issues. Bounce, Tripwire, Bastille and Vortex all focus on bringing CC. Not only a case of kit reduncancy, but also a great example of why "quality over quantity" is so important.
Vauban was not designed with kit functions in mind. He pretty much just had a bunch of random "fun" abilities tossed into one 'frame, with no thoughts in regards to wether they were good to throw out all at once or not.

Further, his Minelayer is an AWEFUL ability (mechanically) for Vauban. On Ivara, it was fine, because she can instantly access them with altfire when she has her ultimate active. That, and she has invisibility (and her own dashwires) which allows her some time to use various abilities. Vauban doesn't have ANY of that. I'd honestly scrap the multi-option mine and go with ONE good ability instead.

Your idea of giving him a deployable cover against ranged attacks is actually a PERFECT idea for him (more to that later)

3) Toss range
Now imagine if Minelayer was just a simple ability (no multi-option thing). You know how you could solve his toss range issue? Holdcasting = Increase throwing range. Tadaaa!

4) Ability stats
Frankly, this is a GOOD thing and I feel MORE Warframes should require more thought in regards to stat choices. If only the Corrupted mods were balanced a bit better though...

5) His passive
You forgot to mention his completely horrid passive. It's maybe fitting the "fort" theme, to an extent. But that's it. It doesn't fit him mechanically whatsoever though, which is far more important. And there are a whole bunch of things he could have instead:

• Sentinel passive - As a counterpart to Oberon, Vauban being an engineer of sorts, could fit with having improved Sentinels. Say, improved damage, improved survivability and maybe +1 Regen-charge. Stuff like that
• Ammo regen - Now, imagine if his abilities were all various utility, and not so heavily damagefocused. For him, that'd mean he'd be using weapons for doling out punishment. And thus, ammo regen would fit him tremendously.
• Intruder (Hacking bonus) - He seems to be an engineer of sorts, no? Giving him the Intruder-mod innately would fit, imo. Although, I wouldn't ONLY give him this passive, that'd be too weak.
• Explosive guard - All explosive weaponry / AoE damage is massively reduced against Vauban. This goes for selfdamage too! This can fit him tremendously; if viewing him as a combat engineer, having a demolitionist vibe is not much of a stretch. Also, due to how Vortex works (further emphasized by my ability-suggestions below), AoE weaponry works amazingly for Vauban.

So, some ideas to improve his kit (passive left out of it):

General ability change
Holdcasting any of his abilities allows him to toss the ability's ball faster (and thus further).

Tesla
Your idea of the "Tesla Barrier" is downright brilliant! It gives the ability a distinct purpose, makes it far more dynamic and could function splendidly for his augment too (so the linking beams also create protective barriers, reducing the need to spam Tesla so much when you want to create a protective "wall"), further increasing his "fort-building" potential.
A slight change for it though, I'd make the Tesla's NOT hover away from its landing point, but rather project a slightly bigger (cubical?) shield. This, due to the augment, which could potentially otherwise have difficulties creating beams if you place Tesla's in small areas (like in a doorway).

Also, the augment could further add the Tripwire's effects to it (so, it deals Slash-damage AND stuns/knocks down an enemy that passes through a linked beam).

Further, if it's damage-potential would need a boost too (although I'd not bother too much on that), one idea could be to make it create a stacking debuff (no limit on amount of stacks) on Tesla-zapped enemies, which increases the damage aTesla zap does to said target.

What I also like about this "Tesla Barrier"-thing; toss it on an enemy and you nullify its ability to shoot (disarming without disarming!), and possibly also so for the enemy's allies. Toss it on a teammate and you protect him from ranged attacks (although, not explosive ones). Hmmm... maybe the latter would be a bit OP? Maybe give the shields some limit in how much damage they can take? Like, X amount of hits per Tesla-barrier? Then, the amount of hits it can take recharges for each enemy it hits? Just some balancing thoughts *shrug*
Or maybe just cut its max duration in half?

Minelayer
Like I already mentioned, I'd prefer a "quality over quantity" approach to this ability. Simply make it ONE good mine. My idea for it would be to give the Mine the niche as a very powerful debuffer (and decent nuke, here it would be fine imo). So, it would be a mine you toss, which has the following mechanics:

• Places a mine on the landing location which lasts up to 5 minutes
• Once an enemy gets close enough (Bounce detection range), it detonates. After 3 seconds, the Mine rearms itself again, working up to 1/2/3/4 times (similar to Bounce)
• When it detonates, it explodes in a 6 meter AoE with multiple effects on the enemies within:
  • Medium/High blast damage (like, 600 or more, similar to current Shred, at least)
  • Ragdolls
  • Reduces armor by 60% (moddable with Strength) for 10 seconds (not just measly 4 seconds)
  • Magnetic proc
  • Radiation proc
  • Deafens enemies for 10 seconds
• Allies walking on a mine does nothing, only enemies can trigger the Mine
• First charge of the mine detonates instantly if tossed straight at an enemy, while still also attaching itself to the enemy (poor enemy...)
• Augment idea - Seeking Mines: Once deployed, after 2 seconds (unless already detonated by an enemy getting close), the Mine will start rolling on the ground and seek out the nearest enemy within X (say 20?) meter range (quite similar to Grineer Seeker Mines, as comparison). However, the Mine will only have 1 charge (instead of up 4), but will also have its base energy cost reduced to 30/25/20/15.

And there you go. Basicly, it becomes ONE mine with all the strengths of Bounce, Shred and Concuss. You know, to make it an ability worth spending 50 energy on? This would thus become the perfect tool for Vauban to deal with big and tough targets (or simply soften tough lategame mobs) that could otherwise ruin his day (in particular enemies like Ancient Healers, who "lose" their aura if Rad-procced).
With the augment, you allow him to be much more mobile and lessens the "throwing precision" needed. However, it does become slightly less energy efficient, and you lose out on its static defense-capabilities.

Bastille
Remains as it is, but with a couple more additions:

• Since Bounce's allylaunching is lost, Bastille gets an allybonus: Allies who get inside a Bastille gain +X% bulletjumpspeed. This bonus lingers for Y seconds after leaving the Bastille
• All enemies caught by Bastille are now "linked". 10% of any damage they suffer, is also felt by the OTHER Bastille-caught enemies (no, this doesn't infinitely loop). While the percentage is unaffected by mods, Power Strength still affects how many enemies can be caught per Bastille, which indirectly increases the potency of this effect (the more enemies you catch = the more damage you can share). Note: This probably should NOT cross over between overlapping Bastilles. Also, enemies repelled by the augment don't count for this "linking".

Vortex
Remains as it is, with a couple of additions:

• Every time an enemy dies in a Vortex, the damage of Vortex increases (arguably needs no limit to its damagepotential), as well as its range (this has a limit though, say max +50%?)
• Augment is rescaled, up to 100% at max rank. Note that this augment is now INCREDIBLY powerful due to the above addition.

 

And there ya go! Look at these natural synergies:

Vortex-synergies:
* Vortex collects enemies, and grows everstronger (only fully so if augmented)
* Bastille helps Vortex's damagepotential (due to the linking effect)
* Tesla helps zap enemies in the Vortex, and protects against outside threats
* Minelayer aids Vortex's damagepotential with its debuffs, as well as removes any potential disturbances (like Ancient Healers)

Ally-helping:
* Toss a Tesla on your ally, and a Bastille close to him/her, and you have a bulletjump-hastened ally with great defense against ranged attacks!

New potential for a mobile playstyle:
* Bastille boosts Vauban's (and allies') mobility, and an augmented Minelayer along with that allows him to debuff while moving.

And so on...

What do you think? :)

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

21 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

) Question: Why aren't you using Avalanche though? It's hard CC (which protects better) and a 360 degree cast. Is it because Ice Wave can be cast while airgliding?

The cost is less and I can visually see the abilities effective area. Not that we don't have a Trinity in the LoR example. However, I usually cast avalanche when I'm in the middle of action. In LoR I'm usually trying to oversee so I'm off with my back against a wall. 

Gimme a few and I'll definitely check out the Vauban rework ideas. He needs another revisit badly and I don't think it'll happen.

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

Going back to Zephyr, Dive Bomb becoming much better as a CC-tool feels like it runs the risk of causing a kit redundancy issue

See, in this specific case I have to disagree. Tornado, even if improved in my preferred method, is still going to be the big, defensive CC that's necessary for making enemies within a specific area not be in that area. In specifics it's for a point-defense, where you need to deny an area to an enemy, to stop combat in that area.

Dive Bomb having more reliable, and possibly larger area, CC doesn't stop it from being an Engage movement. You're casting it so that you can jump into the middle of battle, not as a way to stop the battle, but as a way to start and to continue battle. Use the short-hop/ground cast for the minimum damage to specifically knock down enemies in an area, and that's a definitive but soft CC that opens the enemy up while you hurt them.

Need to get everything out of your face, step back and shoot things while they're unable to attack you? Tornado. Want to take out that specific Bombard and his group of friends? Dive Bomb and wail on them with whatever you please.

That's why I always feel that potential damage is something abilities need.

A frame I'll point out is Gara, who doesn't deal a lot of damage with any of her kit specifically. Her 1 is boosted by melee mods, which is fun, while her 4 can be burst before the duration is up to deal radial damage. But if you know the trick of casting 4 to refresh your 2, then bursting your 4 while you're standing outside... You stack that damage into your 2. It keeps stacking and stacking, scaling up and up, able to potentially, if you keep it going, deal incredible amounts of damage. Insane levels... potentially.

That's the kind of thing that makes frames fun, not that they are OP at base, but that interaction and effort can make them that way if you play well.

So I definitely want to keep in the potential for higher damage with Dive Bomb, whenever I do her reworks ^^

[MuscleBeach]

What do you guys think of this?

 

Zephyr's Dive Bomb should be comparable to Atlas's 3rd punch of landslide (1400, 4.5m blast radius). Differences being that Dive Bomb requires setup and can't be spammed and also scales off of height instead of a combo counter. The balancing question for me is, at what height do you put the 1400 damage? It should be possible to do less by barely jumping and possible to do more by going very high. One thing about the range, it looks like I nerfed it on paper but when you calculate it, it's actually about the same as it currently is. 

 

So here's the new formula I made. 

Spoiler

Min Damage 350, Base Range 4.5

Damage Output = Min Damage * Power Strength (0.3 * Height)

Range Output = Base Range * Power Range + 0.3 * Height

Basically I upped the height modifier and base damage to = Atlas's 3rd punch damage at a reasonable height (Roughly 15m is what I considered reasonable). I made range scale off of the height as well. Bigger Impact = bigger blast area. 

So at base power you get:

Height, Damage, Range - Range at 250% (power strength is easy, at 200% just double what I show)

1, 105, 4.8 - 11.55

5, 525, 6 - 12.75

10, 1050, 7.5 - 14.25

15, 1575, 9 - 15.75

20, 2100, 10.5 - 17.25

25, 2625, 12 - 18.75

30, 3150, 13.5 - 20.25

I would also that enemies caught in the Dive Bomb be Rag Dolled as it makes sense, unless Augment mod is equipped. 

For anyone thinking 3150 unmodded damage is too much, keep in mind this is at 30m, isn't spammable, requires aiming (I think aiming needs to be easier with Dive Bomb), most people don't build power strength with Zephyr (I think) and this encourages different builds without being broken. Also, my Atlas runs around with 180% power strength. He can spam his 3rd punch at 2520, not factoring his melee weapon mods or the combo counter. Never heard of someone complain about his damage or it needing a nerf and it falls off at around lvl 100 too. Dive Bomb is a much less spammable skill so I think this is ok. If people really really think this is a problem, add damage fall off with range but I don't think that's necessary at all. 

 

What do you guys think of that for Dive Bomb?

 

With these changes I would make his Tail Wind focus mainly on mobility, rather than damage, making it a field disruption/mobility skill. Have it stagger everyone you run into and also doesn't stop until you hit a hard surface or finish its range. Hitting units would not stop it. Maybe make its hitbox a tiny bit wider. Its damage can remain unchanged as this wouldn't be a damage focused skill. 

Lower Tail Wind energy to 20 but raise Dive Bomb to 30. Allow Tail Wind to charge in a direction besides straight up when standing on the floor, maybe at 50% or so range.

Remove the delay of movement once we land after a Dive Bomb. We shouldn't be a sitting duck after Dive Bombing. If for some reason this can't be done, just make us invincible for the duration of it. I haven't used Zephyr enough to give a proper solution to this, I just know it's an issue people have. 

Even if you don't like these changes, do you feel it would fix Tail Wind and Dive Bomb? If not, why? 

Edited November 16, 2017 by MuscleBeach
Forgot about not being able to move after Dive Bomb

[Birdframe_Prime]

10 hours ago, MuscleBeach said:

Even if you don't like these changes, do you feel it would fix Tail Wind and Dive Bomb? If not, why? 

My biggest qualm with this is that you're forgetting a very key function of Dive Bomb as it exists now, which is one of the most useful things about the current ability even if it's not totally reliable because of the whole 'animations beat status' problem.

That function is the minimum-damage radial knock-down.

You hop in the air and press 2 from only around a meter up in order to provide very quick CC in the immediate area. My main post does cover how to fix the issues with that CC as it stands, and I point out that for balance the base cast stays low-radius, the average build for things like Jet Stream will only have about 10m radius, but that's more than enough for melee and shotgun work.

I think you're on a good track with Dive Bomb for making the damage scale, but by making the base range scale with height too, the minimum range goes down far enough that the CC part is largely not present if you aren't in a situation where you can get to the altitude you need. The other side is that this, while it's good, is just a little... complicated? Well, only compared to adding on a single other multiplier to scale the damage up, I mean.

I don't dislike it, it just seems like extra work when the simplistic approach would also allow for normal range and good damage, the same base CC at any level for reliability, and then an optional boost to range if synergised with her other ability.

I'd have to take a little more time to really work through this idea, but these are my initial thoughts ^^