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


Birdframe_Prime
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Well said @Thaylien Divebomb and Tornado have much different uses. Keep in mind Tornado is an ability you can drop and leave, Divebomb is an instant use that sets up for melee. Melee being the strongest damage is the other half of divebombs damage. That's why it doesn't need to be potential spam damage. Keep in mind, Zephyr doesn't worry too much about damage other than potentially melee. Having a guaranteed close range CC means she won't bat an eyelash to almost any enemy damage. A frame with that level of survivability, mobility, and CC can leave the damage to the weapons.

People seem to be misreading me a bit so I'm just going to backtrack a bit to clarify

Quote

And you honestly think 700 cold damage is alright damage in current WF?! Sorry, but no. Just no.

No I don't think that's great damage, I just am saying if we're gonna give divebomb some big damage in a big area that's real nice to use, then we have to give that damage to a lot of other abilities in some fashion. So yeah we should line up Zephyr to do some decent damage, but how that plays in matters a lot. Abilities shouldn't need augments to be useful, but augments should be useful enough to want to add them to abilities. And this divebomb is definitely useful.
As far as Frosts kit goes his first is really his least useful, but it's a 1H cast which once you get using them 1H casting is really helpful. Ice Wave doesn't necessarily need damage to be good was the whole point. It'd be a lot better if the augment was built in or pushed enemies but it's actually quite good with a little range. Sure I'd be happy with the things you suggested, but I also am not desperate for them for the ability. At least not for now. And without Strength mods it is nothing but with strength mods I can definitely clear a lot of trash mobs with it alone. But yeah it's nice because it's way cheaper than Avalanche, I can use it anywhere, while moving, faster to start and finish and just as a directional cast. Frost is really also a really good frame already.
Regardless the Divebomb we're talking about already is extremely good without damage. Better than a ton of abilities, the mobility suggested is Incredible. Tail wind would already be mainly just a nice extra that gives it massive setup bonuses. Rewarding height with damage is fine, and it can have high damage if that damage remains in a smaller area than the full ability or gets massive falloff over range.

Where should scaling damage come in? Hard to say. I honestly think it should be through the Turbulence Augment affecting weapons, because that's already there. And it works. Also Tornado would do decent damage, and it's ability to add status procs and damage while enemies are helpless and open to weapon fire shouldn't be forgotten. And when it tosses enemies it has potential for falling kills ignoring enemy scaling. Despite what I'm saying I am also a fan of the ability to scale damage appropriately into massive levels given it takes some work and skill.

Beyond all of these things though, frames do not need to have big damage in their kit. Weapons do tons. Frames can do other things. 

(Also I kinda worry Gara will likely get a nerf at some point. I hope not but she's new and really strong)

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1 hour ago, Sasuda said:

Divebomb is an instant use that sets up for melee.

Since when? 

Who are you going to melee in the 2 seconds it takes for the enemies to rise from the floor? 

If you want a combo like that to be successful then you'll want dive bomb to be a skill that has a forced knockdown with a duration. 

In every aspect of the skill, it screams Burst damage. AoE splash attack that needs a buffer for effectiveness. The crowd control aspects are already absolute with the augment.

With considered scaling, Zephyr could run the augment and drag enemies into the center of her Dive-bomb where they would be hit with the most damage. 

 

Edited by (PS4)RenovaKunumaru
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21 hours ago, Thaylien said:

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 ^^

Well, I think I can explain a bit better with why I think their focuses should be different:

Yes, Divebomb and Tornado currently both have functionalities right now (Grounding, snap CC vs Lasting ragdoll CC and debuffing), but both of them do their things very poorly.

But:
If you have enemies in Tornado, they are CC'd. In this case, you can use Tailwind's ground jump to get up to a better vantage point (to try and aim at the enemies from a better angle, for example. Or just to get out of there, heh). Turbulence still helps from enemies who might be very far away (invaluable on the plains). Then there's Divebomb. What can Divebomb aid with, against those enemies you have trapped in the Tornado? The knockdown is useless, so making it focusing on better knockdown would also be useless in that case.
However, if it did decent damage, it'd provide something else to her kit which can also help against Tornado-trapped enemies. That's pretty much what I was trying to say in her specific case.

Now, kit-wise, analyzing more carefully, I only really think Tornado is her problematic skill. All the other 3 can be used together perfectly. Tornado suffers a bit from the "mish-mash" syndrome that most older frames have. (By mish-mash syndrome I mean that while some 'frame abilities might have a couple of skills that work together, they then have some ability(s) which almost all the time outshines some other ability in the kit, and then there are abilities in a kit that are just... there (Like Zephyr's Tornado. It just doesn't mesh well with her kit, even if it meshes well with her theme))
Other quick examples:
Look at Ash: Shuriken vs Bladestorm, rather than being skills used well together. In contrast to Smoke Screen and Bladestorm (even the energy-synergy aside!)
Ember: Fireball vs WoF vs Fire Blast (with Fireball clearly being the worst). In contrast to any of those 3 and Accelerant.
Frost: Avalanche vs Ice Wave. Actually, besides filling mobility/range-gaps, can you find any 2 abilities in his kit (Snow Globe somewhat aside, due to being more defense than CC) which functions complimentary to one another? (Once again, exception being Snow Globe which can be removed by Freeze, funnily enough).

Then you have some few better degined frames:
NIdus: Virulence and Larva and Parasitic Link and Ravenous.
Loki: Decoy and Invisibility and Radial Disarm. (Note: Not all 4 of his abilities necessarily synergize at once, but he can mix and match most of them, which is good enough imo. Switch Teleport needs some love though, but even then, it works well with Invis and Decoy).
 

1 hour ago, Sasuda said:

1) -snip- That's why it doesn't need to be potential spam damage. Keep in mind, Zephyr doesn't worry too much about damage other than potentially melee. Having a guaranteed close range CC means she won't bat an eyelash to almost any enemy damage. A frame with that level of survivability, mobility, and CC can leave the damage to the weapons.

2) No I don't think that's great damage, I just am saying if we're gonna give divebomb some big damage in a big area that's real nice to use, then we have to give that damage to a lot of other abilities in some fashion.

3) So yeah we should line up Zephyr to do some decent damage, but how that plays in matters a lot. Abilities shouldn't need augments to be useful, but augments should be useful enough to want to add them to abilities. And this divebomb is definitely useful.

4) As far as Frosts kit goes his first is really his least useful, but it's a 1H cast which once you get using them 1H casting is really helpful. Ice Wave doesn't necessarily need damage to be good was the whole point. It'd be a lot better if the augment was built in or pushed enemies but it's actually quite good with a little range. Sure I'd be happy with the things you suggested, but I also am not desperate for them for the ability. At least not for now. And without Strength mods it is nothing but with strength mods I can definitely clear a lot of trash mobs with it alone. But yeah it's nice because it's way cheaper than Avalanche, I can use it anywhere, while moving, faster to start and finish and just as a directional cast.

5) Frost is really also a really good frame already.

6) Regardless the Divebomb we're talking about already is extremely good without damage. -snip-

7) Where should scaling damage come in? Hard to say. I honestly think it should be through the Turbulence Augment affecting weapons, because that's already there. -snip-

8) Beyond all of these things though, frames do not need to have big damage in their kit. Weapons do tons. Frames can do other things.

1) Considering that it could scale radically with height (and being weak with quickhops), I wouldn't classify it spammable in the least.

2) Yes, that's not something I'd be against (although, definitely not for ALL frames ofc, some have lots of utility without the need to be granted a superpowerful direct-damage ability. Harrow and Trinity comes to mind, for example).
I'm not looking at things from a vacuum that "Zephyr needs damage on Divebomb cuz she needs updating", no, I think ALL 'frames need updating (from small to big changes, mind you), and in the case of Zephyr, the only thing I can think of that could be done for Divebomb, so that it compliments the rest of the kit and doesn't necessitate a big revamp (which DE said they most likely won't do anymore), is granting it effort-requiring damage.

Sure, Divebomb could probably do something else which can still fit together with Tornado (or the opposite, Tornado changed so it fits better with Divebomb), but I can't think of anything else. It even looks like DE's intention was to have Divebomb do decent damage (due to the damage-based formula they tacked onto it), so that's why I'm more for that idea too.

3) I'm of the opinion that the best augments are those that do something nice for already good abilities. Divebomb is not currently a GOOD ability (it's ok at best). And its augment is ok, but not amazing either. If the ability was good by default and the augment was improved a tiny bit too (like having a lingering air-vortex for like 2 seconds, to improve its gathering function), the use of it would probably go up to Jet Stream levels.

4) Sure, you can find uses for all the abilities. That's good. But, my problem with Frost's kit (Snow Globe aside) is that I have no benefit of using the 3 CC-skills together. They're not cohesive, so to speak. And that bothers me to no end.

5) He is good because he has Snow Globe and Avalanche, two great skills. And this is ANOTHER problem; Too much from too few abilities. The abilities are unfairly distributed in usefulness (which is usually what tends to lead to 'frames being 1- or 2-trick ponies). Avalanche and Snow Globe have many uses and are used very frequently throughout all kinds of content. Freeze and Ice Wave on the other hand only have niche uses, at most. Distribute some of the awesomeness of Avalanche and Snow Globe over to Freeze and Ice Wave, so you have a good reason to use all 4 skills all the time, along with some (small or big) new effects which make the skills compliment one another a bit beter, THEN he'd be a well designed frame too.
Please notice the difference of a frame doing well and a frame being designed well. Those are definitely not necessarily the same.

6) Divebomb... extremely good? Are we playing a different game or something?

7) So, make the only great and already heavily used Zephyr augment even better? Why are you promoting that badly designed "benefit overload" just like DE does?

That aside, making her kit being complimentary to weapons, rather than the abilities being heavily damaging in themselves, is an ok route to go. As a brief description of a kit designed like that:

  • Tailwind - Mainly meant to be used for awesome mobility and to gain height
  • Divebomb - Could (instead of focusing on high damage) weaken enemies by crippling their defenses (i.e. reducing armor and shields), potentially also granting miniature CC-bonuses, like knocking enemies out for a slight bit longer than usual or applying a slow-effect on them, all these effects more powerfully so and within a bigger radius if used from higher heights.
  • Turbulence - Her main defensive ability
  • Tornado - Wildly catches enemies in status-proccing tornadoes (like now), but now also distributes weapon damage done to Tornadoes to all enemies caught inside (similar to Hydroid's Undertow). This aids with airborne accuracy (as Tornadoes are way easier to hit then the tiny enemies) and compliments gun-useage heavily.

What do you think of those ideas? It took your suggested CC-element for Divebomb into account too :)

8) That I can't disagreed with though. (Which is why I suggested the things I did in point #7, heh)

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11 hours ago, Thaylien said:

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

I didn't remove the knockdown from my suggestion so I take it you're only referring to the range at very low heights? That's a fair critique. The simplest solution would be to put a minimum on it or leave the range how it works now, without adding height scaling to it. I'd prefer removing the scaling and I agree with you. So the base range stays 7, unaffected by height. I was just attempting to put more flavor into it since they clearly wanted it with damage. That does come with pros and cons though. 

11 hours ago, Thaylien said:

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.

The only thing I changed for damage was the numbers used. The calculation is exactly the same as it is in the game right now, just amped up numbers from 250 to 350 and height multiplier from 0.2 to 0.3. I made range do the exact same thing except it adds the height scaling instead of multiplying it. So I have to disagree that this is too complicated. It's already this level of complicated in the game.

Ignoring my changes for height scaling with range and base range would remove the issues you stated but I'm going to stick to them a little more. What do you think of the changes I made but base range stays 7m? Here's the stats for that:

Height, Damage, 100% Range - 250% Range

1, 105, 7.3 - 17.8

5, 525, 8.5 - 19

10, 1050, 10 - 20.5

15, 1575, 11.5 - 22

20, 2100, 13 - 23.5

25, 2625, 14.5 - 25

30, 3150, 16 - 26.5

So range stays the same but now it's getting a buff in range for how high you go. It adds the flavor but also doesn't nerf it in anyway. Is it too strong now? 

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Again you are misunderstanding me, sorry I inferred you read my first post.
I agree to everything, everything, in the Original post's rework except the proposed Divebomb damage model. (and Heavy landing penalty)

So anytime you think I'm talking about divebomb in the state it's in as good, that's not what I'm referring to.
Because if you look at the proposed changes

Quote

If you want a combo like that to be successful then you'll want dive bomb to be a skill that has a forced knockdown with a duration

That's in the suggested change. I'm saying in the suggested Zephyr's new system that Divebomb damage model doesn't fit.

So when you put the context of

Quote

the Divebomb we're talking about

I mean the Divebomb we're talking about from the Original post. So then...

Quote

6) Divebomb... extremely good? Are we playing a different game or something?

No. Because current divebomb is bad. Current Tornado is mediocre, current Tail Wind is mediocre, current Turbulence is really good. I never thought otherwise.
I want Zephyr to have all of the other changes to Divebomb suggested. Except the damage. When you consider all of the other changes proposed that Divebomb is really, really good. It doesn't need huge damage.

Again sorry if I came across unclear but I hope you can understand what I was saying a little more clearly.

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7 hours ago, Sasuda said:

Again you are misunderstanding me, sorry I inferred you read my first post.
I agree to everything, everything, in the Original post's rework except the proposed Divebomb damage model. (and Heavy landing penalty)

So anytime you think I'm talking about divebomb in the state it's in as good, that's not what I'm referring to.
Because if you look at the proposed changes

That's in the suggested change. I'm saying in the suggested Zephyr's new system that Divebomb damage model doesn't fit.

So when you put the context of

I mean the Divebomb we're talking about from the Original post. So then...

No. Because current divebomb is bad. Current Tornado is mediocre, current Tail Wind is mediocre, current Turbulence is really good. I never thought otherwise.
I want Zephyr to have all of the other changes to Divebomb suggested. Except the damage. When you consider all of the other changes proposed that Divebomb is really, really good. It doesn't need huge damage.

Again sorry if I came across unclear but I hope you can understand what I was saying a little more clearly.

Ah, okay, yeah, that makes me understand your stance better now, thanks for clarifying that! :)

Even then though, Divebomb wouldn't be that good, imo. It'd just be some QoL added on it and more ranged added to it (if his damage-bonus suggestions were ignored, I mean). Sure, maybe the melee modscaling might be a tad much (maybe, maybe not, that'd need fieldtesting to say), but rewarding it with very high damage for very high-height drops seems right to me *shrugs*

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And that's pretty much exactly where I'm at too. I don't hate the idea of melee mods adding damage or anything but when I really think about how this should work in practice my intuition says that sounds like way too much. I really like adding rewarding height, for sure. I'm just not convinced if it's best spent on damage or if it's better suited to boosting utility of the knockdown. I favour the utility though. Because damage scaling means it lasts against slightly stronger enemies, whereas utility works against enemies regardless of their strength. Which I think is also the best motivation for encouraging creative team composition while remaining available for solo.

Edited by Sasuda
missed phrasing
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So to @Sasuda, @Azamagon and @MuscleBeach I just want to thank you all for the amount of discussion you've added recently, I'm really glad you've all gotten into this.

22 hours ago, MuscleBeach said:

I didn't remove the knockdown from my suggestion so I take it you're only referring to the range at very low heights?

Indeed, it's why I put the ground-based mechanic in there, the idea being that there would be a balance between this ability and something like Sonic Boom for CC. Sonic Boom is a conical ragdoll for low damage and some pretty high range of up to 42 meters, but since it's a 1 ability it has no other functions, while Dive Bomb's ground function would be a radial knockdown of low range, up to 16m, with a higher base damage of 250 vs 50, but as it's a 2 cast it would have the additional functionality of a set-up function for much higher damage.

Same energy cost, different base functions, Dive Bomb being a 2 means it gets an optional function on top while Sonic Boom is just a cast. Balance between similar costing CC casts.

Also, apologies for my phrasing, but 'complicated' merely meant that you don't really need to add in a scaling range function. Not specifically, since the ability would have more of a lean towards that 'engage' tactic I mentioned. It's more of a 'screw these guys in particular' form of attack than one that really can keep an area clear.

The doubling of range synergy I put in was to cover that shortfall in the base range in a specific way; DE designed Zephyr with her first two abilities costing 25 energy, right? When I thought about why they would do that, I came across a very 'DE like' concept; by doing it this way, in the realm of Parkour 1.0 the idea was that casting Tailwind would supposedly gain enough height that Dive Bomb would deal more damage so if you were to cast Tailwind specifically to set-up Dive Bomb, then you had cast an ability worth 50 energy since the only other way to get that much height was to use the old Parkour system and that took forever.

Nowadays we can get that much height with a Bullet Jump, bounce off a wall, Bullet Jump again and we're there. We can see how underwhelming the cast is for 50 energy cost, we could see it all along, but the only way we were able to get damage onto Dive Bomb before was to spend the extra energy. That's why we used that bit of forced synergy.

But that's... not actually a bad approach, right? Making the ability better when tandem cast? So what I did here, by making Tailwind's launch buff Dive Bomb, it gives that original DE-intended synergy back but in that optional way. Most people won't even bother to use it, since they'll be casting Tailwind from in-air anyway to get the directional movement. But if you deliberately cast Tailwind to set up Dive Bomb? By launching from the ground and targeting a specific group of enemies? That's something that should be rewarded.

See where I was going with that? I didn't want DE's original take on this frame to go completely under the bus ^^

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I play Zeph a good amount, have over the years, but I'm going to come at this from playing another frame this time.

If Zeph's Divebomb shattered a portion of armor that scaled with height, disarmed enemies in its AOE, or even just did what Tornado sometimes does and throw things down and they just stay down for some strange amount of time, that would be extremely handy.


Imagine as a squishy frame, you've got a heavy gunner or a nox and a few mobs setting their sights on you.  Zeph comes out of nowhere and slams into them, temporarily disabling them from dealing damage via knockdown, softening them up, while you go in and mop up Zeph's new mess with Zeph...who's also protecting you via turb.  Zeph would be that rushing knight frame that would literally be darting around doing what zeph does while allies benefit from it.

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2 hours ago, Terrornaut said:

If Zeph's Divebomb shattered a portion of armor that scaled with height, disarmed enemies in its AOE, or even just did what Tornado sometimes does and throw things down and they just stay down for some strange amount of time, that would be extremely handy.

It's been suggested before ^^ And I'm certain it will be suggested again because this would be fun, siphon off the damage potential into slightly longer debuffing of the enemy... it's a distinct upgrade.

It all depends on if DE are thinking that way at the time they do the rework. We can only hope.

As for me, the guaranteed, animation-based knock down is a base minimum kind of thing. Because at the very least it would become extendable via other slow procs like Nova, Equinox, Frost or even the new Zenurik.

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4 hours ago, Terrornaut said:

Also do you have any idea how to consistently reproduce tornado's perma sleep on enemies? Sometimes it happens and enemies just are like 'f these crazy warframes I'm just gonna lay down play dead and go to sleep', other times they get right back up.

I don't, but it seems to happen on enemies that are suspended for longer. I think the longer they stay lifted the longer they stay dizzy and dazed on the ground.

Part of that is why I was interested in making Tornado have a set duration of hold, where they're picked up and suspended either in or around the funnel for a guaranteed 10 seconds. Because that would firstly be 10 seconds of guaranteed CC instead of the random times anywhere between 1 and 52 seconds (if you have max duration and the funnels pin them to the ceiling), second because it would give a reliable number of chances to proc the element of choice, the third would be the ability to adjust and tweak damage numbers based on the ten seconds = eleven total ticks of damage, the first one being multiplied for capture, and the fourth would be that if enemies really are stunned for longer if they're held for longer, then ten seconds of lift will result in a longer stun than quite a few of the of the ones we get now.

What do you think?

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11 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Part of that is why I was interested in making Tornado have a set duration of hold, where they're picked up and suspended either in or around the funnel for a guaranteed 10 seconds. Because that would firstly be 10 seconds of guaranteed CC instead of the random times anywhere between 1 and 52 seconds (if you have max duration and the funnels pin them to the ceiling), second because it would give a reliable number of chances to proc the element of choice, the third would be the ability to adjust and tweak damage numbers based on the ten seconds = eleven total ticks of damage, the first one being multiplied for capture, and the fourth would be that if enemies really are stunned for longer if they're held for longer, then ten seconds of lift will result in a longer stun than quite a few of the of the ones we get now.

What do you think?

I always wished it had a set duration.  Seems to have a minimum of 2s hold time.  Sometimes mobs stay in for a while, sometimes they get sucked in and thrown straight up and out.  If those things were spinning blenders or just hyper aggressively sought out targets, I'd be totally fine with it.  Her kit just needs so much damned work though.  Divebomb is the worst ability in the game next to Mirage's 2, but Mirage has a pretty loaded kit otherwise.

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9 hours ago, Terrornaut said:

Divebomb is the worst ability in the game next to Mirage's 2

I would tentatively disagree on this one, since it's really a matter of perspective. I mean... look at a few of the other casts in game; Ember's 1 is just flat damage with a potential fire proc, not exactly wonderful. Mesa's 1 seems okay until, again, flat damage and only on top of your total damage for a single shot, meaning that for high-damage single-shot weapons you add very little in proportion to the massive damage they deal, and for low-damage rapid-fire weapons you're adding a single ping of higher damage on a shot that might just... miss due to accuracy drop of on rapid fire (personally believe it would work better as a fixed-duration buff to your weapon, allowing the base dps balance of the weapon to even out the additive values). Nyx's Psychic Bolts is her only actual cast for damage, as it were, since her Absorb is entirely reliant on enemy damage, and it's... again, fixed damage with a chance at a proc...

In fact all of these abilities that have a single-cast single-target(/low-range) single-effect balance seem to have really poor performance unless the thing they proc is guaranteed. Nyx's Bolts have a chance to proc Confusion and her passive has a chance to Disarm, but Oberon's 1 has a guaranteed proc chance and an additional damage effect that hits other targets. Volt's 1 has a guaranteed effect and also can spread to nearby targets, Frost's 1 has either a guaranteed effect on the target or a guaranteed effect on the area it hits, and so on and so forth...

So Dive Bomb, with how unreliably it actually procs its knock-down effect on some enemies, falls into that same category of bad casts by default, and some of its drawbacks make it one of the worst out of the lot.

But again... look at the improvements suggested. Objectively speaking, each one is minor. Aiming? Every ability is capable of aiming, I've just made this ability a little more precise. Damage? The ability was supposed to be able to deal damage, I've just improved it. Knock down animations? Reliability, nothing more. Synergy with Tailwind? It was already supposed to have it, we just didn't use it because we now have Parkour to get us the height for free. Ground function? All I'm doing there is removing the need top hop in the air for your CC side of the cast.

None of the changes to the cast is actually all that much work, see? But they add up. They all add up.

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6 hours ago, Thaylien said:

Mesa's 1 seems okay until, again, flat damage and only on top of your total damage for a single shot, meaning that for high-damage single-shot weapons you add very little in proportion to the massive damage they deal, and for low-damage rapid-fire weapons you're adding a single ping of higher damage on a shot that might just... miss due to accuracy drop of on rapid fire (personally believe it would work better as a fixed-duration buff to your weapon, allowing the base dps balance of the weapon to even out the additive values). Nyx's Psychic Bolts is her only actual cast for damage, as it were, since her Absorb is entirely reliant on enemy damage, and it's... again, fixed damage with a chance at a proc...

Mesa's 1 is in better shape than plenty of low tier 1s.  Sure it doesn't scale off of multishot and elemental damage (if it did it would outdo some frames' ults easily), but if you put it on a high damage crit weapon, or have the augment or have a weapon with slash or gas procs going reliably, you can throw on tens of thousands of damage with this thing pretty fast in the span of a few seconds if you use it a few times.  It still adds more flat damage even outside of critting than most of the offensive 1's out there.

Psychic bolts is crappy yeah.

Fireball, despite doing exactly what 1 tick of WoF does, damage and heat status chance, for more energy, with the chance of headshotting and small aoe (basically not good overall, and WoF will have affected more targets by the time it consumes the same amount of energy that Fireball did), it has saved me in lots of high level play by force-panicking units while I was mid reload or they were about to do something.  Sure its not Inaros's 1, but it has most definitely saved me/bought me time many, many times.

Divebomb isn't ever really good for damage, even throwing on a boatload of power strength. I haven't bothered to put Heavy Impact on, but beyond that, unfortunately power strength is a dump stat for Zeph at this time.  Divebomb doesn't do anything really.  Just get a heavy weapon and do a ground slam and you'll deal more damage in the same area with primed reach than trying to build around Divebomb.  Its not good for utility.  Again a ground slam can do the same thing.  It really is a purely thematic ability (it looks and sounds cool as hell, super props to the audio guys there) with nothing to offer unless you mod for range and bring the augment.  It will not make you travel faster, it will not save your life, it will not kill or weaken an enemy. It will not give you cookies or take you someplace interesting.

But yeah I'm good with your changes. Though really anything will be a grand step up once they decide on actually doing something with Zeph's kit.

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16 hours ago, Terrornaut said:

unfortunately power strength is a dump stat for Zeph at this time

I mean you're not wrong, technically, but I do happen to run with 200% power strength as my default at the moment. Because Jet Stream. Only because Jet Stream exists, along with things like the Arca Plasmor and the Euphona... That's about the gist of it really, I run Jet Stream for the weapon buffs on travel speed, there's something seriously fun about being able to have no distance drop on the Euphona or to be able to snipe with bows and crossbows. I mean, you'd think that other stats would suffer, but I only lose about 10-12 seconds of Turbulence's duration this way (a little over 40 seconds where the normal negative-strength duration is around 52-53), while I still have positive stats for Range and Efficiency. It's pretty fun.

16 hours ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

Also turbulence visual needs to be toned down or changed. Sometimes it's really hard to see through it.

Specifically when you just pan the camera around during movement and suddenly one of those swirls is right in your face... that's particularly annoying.

I'm just glad that they made it so that the noise only lasts for a little while after the casting, the constant blowing on my ears was incredible irritating when you were trying to locate Cache's by the sound they make.

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Just to bring up an old point. I'm gonna revive a suggestion for Divebomb.

I mentioned some time ago that I would like Divebomb to practically have a blink effect to it. Rather than the hard dive your have right now, blink the player towards the ground and have them land with a smash.

One of the weaknesses of divebomb I think is that it is only marginally faster than the usual ground slam that everyone already has. Simply being able to hit the ground much faster would be a nice gift.

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9 hours ago, Caelward said:

Just to bring up an old point. I'm gonna revive a suggestion for Divebomb.

You can bring that up, I still think that this wouldn't be a bad improvement, however I still have a slight... stymie for me, just for me. And that's the point that no amount of air pressure will make you 'blink' and that's where Zephyr controlling Air becomes a slight issue with partial teleportation ^^

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Faster would be nice, but, I would just like it to have more utlity.  There is basically no time divebomb is even ok compared to just doing a ground slam on a melee weapon, particularly one with primed reach.  Even with power strength and heavy impact, there's no reason to divebomb beyond hearing that damn cool (srs good job audioppl) crashing sound with divebomb.  It needs to do more than just damage or knockdown, or be frightfully strong damage.

Still would prefer forced knockdown with ground finisher openers, disarm (better), or armor cracking that scales with distance. (best)

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1 hour ago, Terrornaut said:

It needs to do more than just damage or knockdown, or be frightfully strong damage.

Does it though? I mean, sure in my Original Post back there I've pointed out how it can be good damage, and how to force the knockdown, because those are pretty basic needs of an ability that does (at base) damage and knock down, but...

Thing is, that a lot of abilities out there don't actually need to be complex. Utility is good, and I wouldn't mind adding some, but the cast is a 25 energy radial knockdown with scaling damage, if the two things it did were done better... then simple is still good. Players can exploit a good radial knock down, the same way as they exploit the stuns from Valkyr's Paralysis, Banshee's Silence and so on. I mean, the very fact that it's a knock down will ensure that the enemies are open to ground finishers as they recover and that they are definitely not attacking a target in the mean time, but if you were to add too much utility to it, then the cost might go up considerably.

How about a synergy function? I suggested a radius boost on the impact zone from ground-launching with Tailwind; basically when you're deliberately setting up the DB attack, you get a boost, but if you're already in the air and just want to take advantage of it, then you don't. What if, instead, it applied something like a slow to the effect instead? So you launch with Tailwind, then DB a target, and it has a mini Rhino Stomp effect, by making enemies have a second or two of hang time? Or them getting pinned to the ground for longer? Basically a scaling stun to go with the scaling height, but only if you use the Tailwind vertical launch first? The extra effect would be worth the investment of the extra ability, if you think about it like that.

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Just having divebomb scale with height to a respectable extent in general gives Zeph's kit synergy. You don't have to enforce a 1 tailwind -> 1 divebomb bonus, taking advantage of Zephyr's passive to gain greater height before dive bombing is just as synergistic.

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I would rather the ability just be more useful on its own instead of forcing synergy that doesn't entirely make sense in all cases (if I'm up in the air, why TW->DB instead of just DB if I'm at the height i want to be at? Just odd).

If it did anything you suggested, sure.  It just needs to do more than raw damage and a normal length knockdown.  It has to have a justifiable purpose in existing and being a part of the kit and not just groundslamming with 80% of melee weapons.

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