Zephyr Rework [DE]

[Aareyn2hip]

Ok, let's get this straight, seeing as limbo is getting his fancy rework I wanted zephy poo to get some love as well. I have seen a lot of zephyr reworks, and I just don't want her to be simple. I want zephyr to be a hard frame, that is hard to play, takes skill, and let's her manipulate Arial combat to its finest, as she is Tempest of warframe. Now I have no intention of making her abilities easy I even have augments planned out and if it takes a year to program I'm fine with it, because I'll be waiting with my Zephyr Prime for her long awaited rework.

Now without further ado, mah rework. ^-^

1st Ability. Tailwind. 

This is actually a really nice ability, but not many think so and it costs a lot of energy. I found a much more versitle way to make her a real flying bird.

Ok, upon, activating the ability a little ring goes around you kind of like mesa's shooting gallery. While active it let's you bullet jump mid air multiple times and extra 1 at 0 rank and it increase to 2, 3, and 4 and ranks 1-3. This whole be turned into a toggle ability that costs 25 energy to toggle, and 2 energy per extra bullet jump. A nice effect would be the ring shivers up and down slightly, when you bullet jump. Does not take energy over time. The extra bullet jump boosts inflict slash dmg on enemies with a small chance at a slash proc.

*Number of boosts is increased by power strength

*Can be toggled on and off

*Bullet jumping while aiming downwards will cause a mini "Dive Bomb"

2nd ability. Turbulence. 

This ability is fine as it as it can block bullets so you won't did to easly. It can be better though, pressing the ability again will compress the air and create a small blast that knocks down any enemy close enough, you know, for those sticky situations.

*Blast is slightly effected by power range

*blasting the wall will instantly cancel the ability, similar to rhinos iron skin augment

*Blast is slightly effected by power strength

3rd ability. Gale Force Wind. 

Sends out a giant bursts of compressed air stop all projectiles, kocking enemies down and stopping any further projectles from the effected enemies lasts 2 seconds at rank 0 and increase by 4, 6, 8 seconds at ranks 1-3. Further Increase the knock down recovery animation of the enemies by 50%.

This is a great ability for high level play where enemies will be to hard, and force you to run away. This ability let's you stop enemies that are to close to the defence pod. Planned corrctly can let you revive allies without worrying about you dying aswell. This is not a damage ability it is for CC

*Burst effected by power range 

*Burst and force of KD effected by power strength

*Effected by power Durritation

4th ability. Tempest. 

Ok, this is were it gets good. This is when her legacy begins as the tempest. This ability will get the status effect removed and become slash. It will stay a durritation ability. Upon activation you send out your normal tornados that are the color of your energy and so slash eng with a 20% chance at a slash proc every second. Pressing the ability again will make Zephyr gather all her tornados and turn into one giant tornado she then goes into the eye of the tornado moving it around picking up her enemies at will. Kind of like inaros' 3rd ability but instead your at the top and it's a bigger tornado. Pressing the skill again while on the giant tornado who'll make her crush the tornado and send a blast of air that causes a blast proc on enemies effect. Zephyr then dive bombs to the ground doing a mini blast, canceling the skill. The skill lasts 4 seconds at rank 0 and it increases to 6, 8, 12 seconds at ranks 1-3. How fast the tornado travels at second stage is effected by Sprint speed. This is semi damage semi CC ability.

*Effected by power range

*Effected by power strength

*effected by power durritation

*2nd stage tornado effected by Sprint speed

 

Now on to augments!

1st Ability Augment. Tailwind

Increase Sprint speed by 5% and allies can now use the ability for half the amount of jumps, that lasts for 2.5 seconds at rank 0 and increases to 5, 7.5, 10 seconds.

2nd ability augment. Turbulence

Ok turbulence' augment is fine as as but the range on it is pitiful it should be auto casted on allies or behave simmiler to volts speed. Also it would be nice if allies got a wind shield as well for 2.5 seconds at rank 0 and increases to  5, 7.5, 10 seconds at ranks 1-3.

3rd ability augment. Gale force wind > Maiming winds

The compressed air now has a 25% to inflict a slash proc and a 5% to cast an aditional slash proc at rank 0. main slash proc increase by 50%, 75%, 100% and rational pro's increases by 10%,15%, 20%. Max of 3 stacks.

4th ability augment. Tempest > Arialate 

This changes the ability. Its kind of like beta when you had to pick which abilities you needed and left 1 or 2 out to build around those abilities.

It stays durritation. Upon activating the ability you gain a little wind aura (like ash gets black smoke when using blade storm). While in the aura the ability will count down fromn 12 seconds at max rank 3 at rank 0, and give you 200% extra aim glide durritation and increase your low gravity passive by 50% Taping the ability again will shoot a mini tornadon that lasts for 3 seconds and bursts when it hits a enemy Dealing AOE dmg around the enemy as well. Each tornado costs 5 energy and the ability costs 25 energy to activate. Holding the button will cancel the ability.

*Effected by warframe mods such as range, strength, durritation and efficiancy

*The speed of which the tornados travel is effected by Sprint speed

 

So what do you think? To complicated? Once again it doesn't matter if it takes [DE] a year for them to try this I just hope they consider it and try it at the very least as Zephyr is the least uses frame now that banshee is getting primed next (at least I think she is, DE could prob be priming mirage....)

I would put in some gifs or pictures but I don't got any, sorry.

 

[Alcatraz]

No thanks.

Unless Zephyr got a rework to where her passive was tailwind on roll, I wouldn't want that skill touched. I like tailwind the way it is, not a fan of dive bomb even with it's augment, so it'd be the only skill I'd rework.

 

 

[(PSN)Akuma_Asura_]

I just want flight and divebomb into tailwind 

Edited February 19, 2017 by (PS4)Akuma_Asura_

[FreezerFlare]

Tailwind has been made redundant when simply Bulletjumping can make you go a Further Distance.

Divebomb is neat but the problem with the ability is the lack of Tilesets that can make use of it (Lots of cramped hallways)

Turbulence is her only ability that's 100% Fine IMO

Tornado's provide mediocre CC and has an Elemental Gimmick that isn't that useful.

1 Needs to be replaced

2 Is fine but with the state of current tilesets is Niche

3 Fine

4 IMO The change that could help this ability is making the Elemental Tornadoes have 100% Status Chance. Blast Tornadoes for mass Knockback?, Radiation Tornadoes for Confusion?, Viral Tornadoes? ETC (Plus this would make her Tornadoes Augment not useless and actually pretty decent for spreading status)

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

Okay, I was going to give this full attention... Then I made my own thread, came back, thought about things... I want to thank you for bringing in a new thread for Zephyr, the more the merrier to get DE to notice things.

But I read through your rework and found... that it's not exactly the best thought-out of the ones I've seen. Please forgive me, my feedback may come across as harsh and blunt.

And then this: 

22 hours ago, FreezerFlare said:

Tailwind has been made redundant when simply Bulletjumping can make you go a Further Distance.

^^ Wow... I think you're missing a trick somewhere friend, because Tailwind can easily go three to four times the distance of Bullet Jump...

However...

22 hours ago, FreezerFlare said:

The change that could help this ability is making the Elemental Tornadoes have 100% Status Chance.

You hit the nail on the head here. Pay attention OP, Elemental Status procs beat Slash Status procs every time, with the one exception that the base damage for the Bleed proc is ridiculously high, (and even then it could be argued that a Gas proc could do as well, depending on the situation), and here's the point, Tornado's damage is tick damage over time, it would proc very, very tiny Bleed procs. Or nothing on a heavily armoured enemy.

Now, on to actually looking at this Rework.

Because you haven't got exactly bad ideas, but you've missed some key points about gameplay, balance and synergy and I'm going to poke holes here for you to explain/cover/fix.

23 hours ago, Aareyn2hip said:

I want zephyr to be a hard frame, that is hard to play, takes skill, and let's her manipulate Arial combat to its finest,

Fair enough. But unless completely reworked, she's never going to be a hard frame. DE don't change frames to make them more complex anymore, they learned that from Saryn. On the other point... What aerial combat? There isn't any. All you do is go up to over-see the best place to come back down again, usually hard when you expect Dive Bomb to be actually decent (even though it currently isn't). Sure you'll get some pot shots, and maybe you'll see a stray Hellion or two up there, but over the height of about three meters there simply isn't any combat. More to the point, every function of the game relies on you having your feet on the ground, from reviving a team member, picking up objects, using a terminal, opening a door, using a floor panel, plugging in a data mass, activating life support... without a sentinel and a full vacuum mod you'll even have to land just to pick up energy and loot. If you haven't seen all the limitations on Titania's flying, that's fine, but I have, and I don't want those for Zephyr.

23 hours ago, Aareyn2hip said:

I found a much more versitle way to make her a real flying bird.

Except she's an air caster. Always has been, right from the very inception of the frame on these forums where the concept thread was adopted by DE.

Now, that's not to say that her extra bullet jumps would be a bad thing. That's a fair use of power. It's just that you're forgetting two things; the first is that DE don't get rid of abilities. They may move them, or adjust what they do, but the only ability they've ever outright removed is Excal's Super Jump, which became redundant as it couldn't jump as well as a bullet jump or even just a double jump.

Again, I also feel you're over-hyping slash. Slash is effective, yes, but at low ends of the damage spectrum it's only effective against enemies weak to Slash. Against Corpus shields or Grineer armour, low damage slash does pretty much nothing, and since the bleed proc is based on how much damage you deal, doing no damage means you bleed for no damage.

23 hours ago, Aareyn2hip said:

2nd ability. Turbulence. 

This ability is fine as it as it can block bullets so you won't did die too easily. It can be better though, pressing the ability again will compress the air and create a small blast that knocks down any enemy close enough, you know, for those sticky situations.

I will always love Turbulence, but with the CC you're putting in on her other abilities... A. you don't need CC on this as well, and B. Turbulence already does enough to warrant being a 3 cast for 75 Energy; just because you're putting in a new ability cast doesn't mean you can just cut the cost of Turbulence. Complete immunity to ranged hitscan and projectiles is a powerful ability, and the cost of that is that you're still vulnerable to AoE damage and to melee. Thus giving Turbulence a way to be strategically immune to melee as well would be both over-powered and also needless because you have CC on another cast.

23 hours ago, Aareyn2hip said:

3rd ability. Gale Force Wind. 

Sends out a giant bursts of compressed air stop all projectiles, kocking enemies down and stopping any further projectles from the effected enemies

You've kind of done the opposite with this, you've put on a CC cast, but then given it Turbulence's effects too. If you have Turbulence why do you need the second effect of Gale Force? Doesn't make sense.

For balance, strip the projectile blocking off and put this on 2, because a short duration CC like this (or like Dive Bomb's, because that's basically what this is) shouldn't cost more than Turbulence.

Otherwise, not a bad call. While I'm disappointed that you would take off the vast majority of Dive Bomb and its scaling effects, which is thematically what DE intended for her, and relegated it just to a 'mini' Dive Bomb on Tailwind's cast... also the usefulness of it in combo with being in the air, which is again the theme; take of fast, come down hard, like a predator, not a butterfly flapping around... yeah, while I'm a little disappointed there, you've picked a decent replacement.

Well, again, it kind of would be a decent replacement if you didn't still have to be on the ground to exploit it. And before you say 'but you don't have to be on the ground' I'll point out that if you want this ability to be big enough that you can cast it in the air, that's going to be really, really large radius... And at that point a massive radius knock-down with long recovery, easily re-castable... it's going to be very powerful and might even have to be nerfed back to a smaller range, or be restricted to only effect things in a ring around Zephyr, not in a sphere.

On 19/02/2017 at 8:48 PM, Aareyn2hip said:

4th ability. Tempest. 

Ok, this is were it gets good. This is when her legacy begins as the tempest.

This is actually where it gets both ridiculously overpowered in some aspects and then ridiculously under-powered in others, with a side of ability stealing from other frames.

First you want to, probably because you've had Slash damage over prioritised to you by others, weaken the ability by restricting it to a single damage type when it can be any it wants to be.

Then you want to make it into a bigger, better Inaros' 3rd ability, which is direct ability copying. We don't step on other frames' toes in reworks, that's just rude. Not to mention that, without the same energy costs, movement restrictions and so on, a mobile whirlwind ability is very, very powerful in this game.

Finally you want to make it have a 'finishing' stage that turns it into yet a different ability and Dive Bombs the result. And why a Blast proc? You've already got them CC'd, the proc from blast deals no damage, the element deals damage, the proc is just a ragdoll, and adding a CC proc on top of a CC ability just... it won't add anything to the cast. Moreover, adding the Dive Bomb to the end is just a pointless bit of showboating that will do nothing since the blast proc will have put them all out of range of it.

This, regrettably, because it actually sounds awesome to see, is not a Warframe power, it's a MOBA Ultimate. Except you've capped the damage-over-time and countered yourself with multiple layers of effects that don't add to each other. On the one moment under-powered, and in the next instant an ability that's directly overpowered because it's a more powerful version of an existing ability, and immediately back to being underpowered again.

I'm sorry, but I... I couldn't leave it alone, I had to pick it apart.

In any case, as much as I think your rework would appeal visually... it doesn't wholly make sense in terms of gameplay in some cases, in terms of balance in others, and in terms of balance in the rest.

You've also basically ripped apart her abilities to make new ones, and that, sadly, isn't what DE will do. They might get some ideas from this, but I don't think it'll ever actually happen.

[ImagoMortis]

Why cant zephyr just fly?

[Birdframe_Prime]

54 minutes ago, ImagoMortis said:

Why cant zephyr just fly?

Counter-questions: Why would it actually help her? And why would we give up another, more enemy/team interactive, ability to do that?

I mean, sure, if you're able to come up with a full and thorough re-work that weighs the pros and cons of a flying frame better than they did with Titania, then I'll gladly take a look. But Zephyrs abilities... I'm fairly sure they wouldn't do anything different for her than they do with her current Lightweight passive letting her spend all that time airborne anyway. I'll break it down logically for you:

Every interaction we have with our environment in warframe that isn't based on guns or abilities relies on our player model being on the ground. Reviving a team member, activating life support, opening a door, using/hacking a console, pickup up a data package or power cell, using any and all melee stances/finishers, even just holding down a floor button in the Raids.

Titania's Razorwing is the example of this, not because she shrinks down, but she can't do any of the above because she's not standing on the ground anymore.

Another point is that is only one enemy that goes higher than 3m off the ground for any length of time, and that's the Grineer Hellion. There's no aerial combat up there for her to do, and if you stay up away from the navigation mesh that enemies use, enemies stop spawning for you and stand and stare, eventually. The game is rigged to make you come down again by virtue of the enemies not putting up with that crap ^^

Quite another point is the confined spaces problem; people can use Tailwind in a smaller space because of its short duration and straight aiming line, but a full-size warframe trying to fly around in any of the grineer asteroids, the ship tiles, even things like the ice planet tunnels... It works for Titania because she shrinks down and suddenly has all that proportional air-space to move in, a non-shrunk frame couldn't do that.

And finally... because if you consider all of that, unless you were to change all of Zephyr's kit to revolve around her being in the air (which is classed as a new frame, not a rework of this frame) then everything a flying Zephyr could do, a non-flying Zephyr could do as well or better. With one small exception; a flying Zephyr could hover in mid-air. That's it. That's the one thing a flying Zephyr could do over a non-flying Zephyr.

So like I said, if you can do that, if you can make a better Zephyr by working around a flying ability, then I'm interested, please show me. But until you can solve all of those issues (particularly the one about people not being able to use their regular melee stuff since Body Count and Drifting Contact opened up melee counter scaling), I don't think a flying Zephyr will gain much traction.

[Arkenai7]

1 hour ago, Thaylien said:

And finally... because if you consider all of that, unless you were to change all of Zephyr's kit to revolve around her being in the air (which is classed as a new frame, not a rework of this frame) then everything a flying Zephyr could do, a non-flying Zephyr could do as well or better. With one small exception; a flying Zephyr could hover in mid-air. That's it. That's the one thing a flying Zephyr could do over a non-flying Zephyr.

I don't think that's a small exception - a mid-air hover would be a very strong ability for Zephyr IMHO, when combined with her kit and certain weapons.

 

I contest that you need flying at all to have a hover, though. Having a hover, tailwind, and her passive... I can't see what a dedicated-flight Zephyr would be able to achieve that a hover-enabled one wouldn't, either.

[Birdframe_Prime]

15 hours ago, Arkenai7 said:

I don't think that's a small exception - a mid-air hover would be a very strong ability for Zephyr IMHO, when combined with her kit and certain weapons.

I contest that you need flying at all to have a hover, though. Having a hover, tailwind, and her passive... I can't see what a dedicated-flight Zephyr would be able to achieve that a hover-enabled one wouldn't, either.

That's a fair point, actually, and part of why I put in extended Aim Glide and more Air Control during it in every one of my reworks.

Using her base abilities to make her more viable in game and letting her passive be improved to make her more air mobile and more efficient to be up there, is what I'm all about. I'm just surprised that people haven't see how... how limiting an actual flight mechanic is in Warframe.