Improving Zephyr

[KaeseSchnitte]

A little something I thought about recently, on how to improve Zephyr.

The new passive replaces the old one, Dive Bomb got merged with Tail Wind, a new ability that I called Katabatic Vortex fills the free slot and is meant to make sure Dive Bomb and Tornado can hit many targets, Turbulence got upgraded with a shockwave that reflects projectiles, so you can more easily protect your allies and Tornado got changed to have a more calculable effect. Hope you like it.

Passive:

1. On the ground
   • If [Insert reasonable requirement here] is met, Zephyr will be lifted up for the next 9 seconds
     • Immune to ground-based attacks (Moa slam attacks, Sapping Ospreys, Grineer slam attacks, Tar Mutalist MOA puddles, etc.)
     • Retains all functionality from normal running (hacking, picking up items, reviving, etc.)
     • (Increased movementspeed and decreased friction)
   • The requirement has to be an active component, so that the player can control when the floating activates, but also have some sort of cooldown to make it not OP, yet not be a real cooldown because cooldowns suck

Tail Wind:

1. Passive
   • If Zephyr is airborne after Tail Wind has ended, the gravity will be reduced by 90% for the next X seconds
     • Cancelled when Zephyr touches the ground
2. In the air
   • Zephyr gets propelled in the direction of the crosshairs
     • Holding RMB and colliding with a wall lets Zephyr cling to that wall
     • Enemies in Zephyr's path get ragdolled in the general direction of Zephyr's movement
     • Pressing the button again cancels Tail Wind
3. On the ground
   • Launches Zephyr straight into the air
     • Staggers nearby enemies (as per guaranteed Impact proc)
     • Increases the impact radius of the next use of DIve Bomb
4. Dive Bomb
   • Holding the button for 1 second will cause Zephyr to use Dive Bomb
     • Towards the crosshairs
     • Holding the button longer displays the AoE around the crosshairs
     • Only activatable if less than 75° to the orthogonal of the ground
       • Similar to Ivara's Dash Wire requirements
   • 3-Stages ability
     • If traveled less than 2m before hitting the ground - small AoE, low damage
     • If traveled between 2m and 8m before hitting the ground - medium AoE and damage
     • If traveled higher than 8m before hitting the ground - large AoE, high damage
5. Augment
   • Affects Dive Bomb (replaces Divebomb Vortex)
     • Deals increased damage on impact
     • Increases the knockdown time
     • Leaves an Aoe that slows (and bleeds) enemies

Katabatic Vortex:

1. Whirlwind
   • Spawns at the location of the crosshairs
     • Sucks in nearby enemies
     • Similar to a 360° Mag Pull
     • Synergises with Dive Bomb and Tornado

Turbulence:

1. Deflection
   • Deflected projectiles are counted as Zephyr's projectiles
     • unable to harm allied players
   • Damage of projectiles is multiplied by Zephyr's Power Strength
2. Shockwave
   • Upon activation, Zephyr sends out a shockwave that deflects enemy projectiles
3. Turbulence
   • Upon activation, Zephyr surrounds herself with strong winds that deflect any incoming hostile projectiles
4. Recastable

Tornado:

1. Controls
   • Pressing the button will spawn tornados in an area around Zephyr
     • Only 3 tornados can be active at any given time
     • Tornados can only move inside that area
     • Area range affected by Power Range
   • Pressing the button while a tornado is active will move the area in which the tornados can be active to the location of the crosshairs, if not too far away
     • Tornados will move from their location towards the new area on a direct path
   • Holding the button while a tornado is active will deactivate the ability
     • Tornados will despawn permanently if their timer runs out
2. Tornados
   • Each tornado has an individual timer
     • Each enemy affected by the tornado will deplete that timer
       • Stacks with affected enemies
       • Example: 1 enemy affected: -1 per second, 2 enemies affected: -1.2 per second, ASO.
     • When the timer runs out the tornado will despawn and Zephyr will automatically spawn a new one
3. Energy Drain
   • The ability does not drain energy
     • Spawning tornados drains energy
       • Spawning subsequent tornados drains energy
4. Damage
   • Damage is affected by melee mods
     • Elemental damage type is decided by melee elemental mods

 

Difference between Katabatic Vortex, Tornado and Divebomb Vortex:

 

Edited May 12, 2017 by KaeseSchnitte

[Birdframe_Prime]

You know, I usually comment on every Zephyr thread I see, and for a change... I'm not disappointed in your goals here. Too many people want to change Zephyr into a DPS frame, or a Flying frame, or just say 'oh yeah, make 1 and 2 the same cast and give her something new' with no clear goal as to what they would give her.

I mean, I'll be clear and say that this is a lot of work for DE and would change entirely how Zephyr plays, with results I can't actually forsee too many of... which always worries me on change/rework threads (not being able to figure out what affect it would have overall in the game). Annnd... I'm not too keen on some of the changes.

My thoughts are a little all-over-the-place today, so I'm just going to put down things as I think of them:

Dive Bomb being a hold ability was discussed a while ago, what most people pointed out is that, unless it was fixed to actually work correctly first, it wouldn't work anyway. The discussion then went on to say that If it was fixed already, it would be powerful enough that you didn't have to roll it into Tailwind, but that's not the point. The hold part was discarded mainly because that's a nerf. Dive Bomb is instant cast no matter the height, the only time we'd want to actually hold it is to aim it (like Nidus' 1), and in that case, a single second hold is too short.

Turbulence will never reflect things, that's a huge buff to the ability that is already one of the best defense casts in game. DE have spent three years getting this ability to work as it currently does, they won't buff it to do damage reflect.

And while I like Kabatic Vortex I think that ability could be equally fulfilled by Dive Bomb Vortex if the ability worked the way it was supposed to work, but at lower range. On the other hand, a purely adapted version of Nidus' 2 is probably not advisable considering how new that frame is.

If we're talking additional abilities (which people always do for Zephyr) then yeah, KV is actually one of the better options I've seen XD Just might not be advisable until some time has passed.

Annnd... hmm, while I think that your change to Tailwind's on-ground launch might be interesting, I personally believe that giving it an actual use (like being a trigger for a buff to Dive Bomb, for example), rather than changing what it does, would benefit the frame far more.

The Tornado change is possibly the best option for an actual ability replacer that I've seen.

I have proposed my own rework that would turn Tornado into a mid-point between Tentacle Swarm and Vortex, without being over-powered, as a Defensive CC ability for putting on points, pods and providing cover for squad actions. But this change is one that turns it into a mid-point between Tentacle Swarm and World on Fire, which I kind of get and kind of think would be interesting to test and see how over-powered it got, or whether it was at all.

So you would toggle on the ability, summon funnels, they would act pretty much as they do now, except each has a fixed roaming distance from point of cast and would expire based on how many enemies you lifted in each, every enemy after the first cutting the remaining time by half. Any funnel that expires is re-spawned in the radius of Zephyr, much like a slower-paced World on Fire radius, at the cost of energy per spawn of funnel, and it can be done manually by re-casting the ability at the new location. Energy is saved if you have duration remaining on existing funnels by simply moving them to the new location.

In practice I can see that being useful for faster runs, and for longer runs, than the ability is currently capable of.

On the down side you've not fixed a whole bunch of the problems with Tornado. (Head on over to my thread, 'Zephyr should be good', if you'd like to see what I mean and how I'd do it.) So I might hold judgement on how good this will be as an actual ability overall.

tl:dr

I can't fault you for your ideas, none of these would be actually bad, which is rare in a Zephyr rework thread ^^

You might need to consider a little more about the balance of the abilities and what the frame is already good at doing before enacting some of the changes, but I like your general thrust towards an even faster, even more CC-oriented Zephyr who stays true to the Air Caster mentality.

Thanks for the feedback!

[KaeseSchnitte]

I could've explained a lot of points you touched on better, but I was too lazy when I wrote this post, so I'll try to clear up misunderstandings.

Dive Bomb:

There are a couple of reasons why I decided to have you hold the button to activate it. First, if Dive Bomb would just be activated if Tail Wind collides with the ground, there'd be a host of issues that the devs wont be able to properly work around. The devs would have to decide for you if you want to be using Tail Wind in one instance, or Dive Bomb in another. When does a collision count as Dive Bomb? That is a question best left to the individual player. And that is why holding the button to activate Dive Bomb is better. Also, I don't think that Dive Bomb should be used as a quick stun, so I don't see a problem with not being able to just jump up and activate Dive Bomb immediately.

Turbulence:

I worded that poorly, I meant deflection and not reflection. I've changed that in the OP.

Kabatic Vortex:

I honestly don't see a place for Divebomb Vortex. I think that Augment should be reworked into something better. Kabatic Vortex would offer several advantages over Divebomb Vortex, such as being able to use it without Dive Bomb. As for your concern that it's too similar to Nidus, try to imagine Kabatic Vortex more like a 360° Mag Pull than Nidus' Larva. I've edited my OP accordingly.

Tail Wind:

The idea of using Tail Wind from the ground to get into the air and to buff the next Dive Bomb sounds like a good idea, I just don't know if it would be too good, considering that using Tail Wind from the ground wouldn't use energy (because it annoys me that it currently does). Also, the change I've proposed would have huge benefits for Zephyr in higher levels. Imagine that a teammate died to Spaling Drone mines and can't get out of their radius, Zephyr could just activate Tail Wind on the ground to not be affected by the mines and revive her teammate. But I might incorporate my idea into my suggestion into Zephyr's passive (if Zephyr uses an ability while on the ground, she will float for a few seconds) and add your idea to Tail Wind instead.

Tornado:

My idea was to make Tornado more like a zoning tool. For example, you could spawn tornados on one tower in an interception mission to keep that point clear. Tornados being affected by melee mods ins necessary to fix the weird elemental damage situation and to empower tornados to actually kill enemies, since they are good as a CC, but lackluster in actually helping you to kill the CC'd enemies, due to them swirling the enemies around.

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

I could've explained a lot of points you touched on better, but I was too lazy when I wrote this post, so I'll try to clear up misunderstandings.

Fair, and thanks for not taking my feedback as all negatives, I tend to come across as a little over-detrimental in my comments when I'm not paying attention.

Okay, so, just to go through and help:

People so often see the vertical nature of Dive Bomb as a downside, and I don't. The instant cast and immediate effect (well, providing you're not too high) is the main strength of this ability to me. Not to mention the fact that, since so many players really just complain that it's an aiming thing when they're at height, there is actually a solution to the combination problem that can make both sides happy. So using your version, a very simple solution is to eliminate the angle trigger almost entirely and simply have the aim be almost straight down. I know that seems limiting, but when you're at a height, down is where you're looking to go with this ability. If the player aims down, it paints a target on the ground, and that shows the player visually that it's now a Dive Bomb. There would have to be an allowance, but in order for the trigger to be viable at any point, you'd have to make the area that was capable of being Bombed very narrow. A compromise, as it were. 

As for Turbulence, no, I literally meant that every portion of your additions would be a buff that would make an already powerful ability even more so. The duration possible with Tailwind is actually kind of extreme for that kind of protection, and if deflected bullets can damage enemies, even if they aren't directly reflected, that's adding damage to a purely defense cast (the only frames that do that are Trin and Mesa, and both of those are damage reduction, not damage negation). Even just the shockwave on activation and the recast are things that would usually cost the ability some other function to balance.

Basically, all I'm saying is that Turbulence, for what it does, is actually considered to be in the top three of defense casts in the game already; you trade off a continued vulnerability to melee, aura and AoE damage with literal perfect negation of ranged damage (baring void/sentient lasers). For up to 50 seconds. At any level. No joke, the consequences of that in game are huge. Zephyr's base mobility and low gravity can evade everything Turbulence can't protect from, and the frame can, if used correctly, out-tank Rhino and Chroma at high level (not Valkyr, though, thanks to life strike regen on her 4, but...). That's why it isn't currently recast-able, and why it doesn't do anything to melee enemies... well, also because the launch function of Tailwind does the radial burst of air already, yet another reason to keep that in somewhere...

Tailwind from the ground is a really simple fix, too, because that one can be a hold. When you're on ground, tapping 1 makes you Tailwind as if you were in the air, (just for a moment forgetting your lift function) and holding it causes you to launch after a brief charge up. The function then becomes a deliberate trigger you can use for buffs (for example, doubling the base range and damage of Dive Bomb as long as you don't touch the ground first), and not one that people use by accident when their previous Tailwind passes too close to an object beneath them. This also adresses your thoughts on the multiple costs; the cost of Tailwind and Dive Bomb was both 25 energy because they're supposed to synergise already so that a vertical Tailwind plus a Dive Bomb should do enough effect to enemies that the cost of 50 Energy is valid. Just because it isn't right now, doesn't mean it can't be. In this rework's case, though, why not have the buff function negate the cost of the next press of 1 before touching the ground again? This would encourage players to use the Dive Bomb in synergy again, instead of what we do now... ignoring it... but would also reduce the overall cost of movement for players by providing a means to get a free Tailwind if needed.

Thinking of that Lift function, though, I'm interested as to how you'd implement that, because it depends entirely on what the result would be. If it was like Nezha's Fire Walker, a basic buff to sprinting that provided some defensive effect, then yes, awesome. If, however, it was a genuine lift from the ground and caused a hovering style of movement, then no, that would be a detriment to her, because it would prevent her from using the ground-based functions of the game, such as everything from reviving a team member to hacking, opening a door, activating life support, picking up power cells or intel, all of those things that require your character's feet to be planted firmly on the ground to trigger (the main reason that Titania is so bad for everything but damage and evasion in Razorwing).

Hmm... that's about it for my thoughts on this particular rework... surprisingly not as many as I find on most threads ^^

Like I said, though, stop on by my own thread, take a read, see what you think. My own opinion on the matter is actually very simple: Zephyr should already be good, her mechanics have been implemented badly and just need tweaking or buffing to make them work as intended. Everything her description says she should do is actually awesome because it does the same at every level of play, where other frames have functions that drop off over time because they do fixed damage, or rely on specific values for defense and so on. If we just... put it where it was supposed to be, based on the current game, not on 2014's game... then it would work.

Tailwind, not locked to her animation and able to cancel out with parkour if she hits a wall; Dive Bomb causing animation instead of status so that it always knocks things down, and able to do damage on impact based on melee mods, able to be buffed by Tailwind's launch to make the range better; Tornado as a full-on defense CC cast that doesn't wander off and is effective and reliable no matter where you use it, not to mention with reliable elemental chance and damage ticks thanks to a revamp on the pick-up-and-hold function.

She could be so good, but she isn't because she hasn't grown with the game.

[KaeseSchnitte]

Dive Bomb:

I appreciate that you can make use of a broken ability, but my aim is to fix Dive Bomb and to make it useful. And I'm convinced that my suggestion is the best way to make the ability both useful and to keep the style the devs have envisioned for this ability. The gif describing a possible iteration of Dive Bomb in this thread is what I'm aiming for.

Turbulence:

I don't see Turbulence to be as powerful as you say it is. It only deflects projectiles, not beam weapons, not hitscan weapons, not AoE's, not melee attacks. Furthermore, Turbulence allows you to grief your teammates, by deflecting enemy bullets in their direction. All that is enough of a downside to warrant my suggestions in my opinion.

If the devs disagree, then there are plenty of ways to tone the strength of this ability down without removing the deflection. You could increase the angle at which projectiles are deflected, which would make them miss enemies most of the time. You could reduce the duration of the ability, which would result in a higher energy consumption. You could make the shockwave destroy projectiles, instead of deflecting them. And so on.

Tailwind:

I don't like your proposal, because that would mean that not only pressing the button has different effects based on wheter you're airborne or not, but also holding the key. The ability would become too cramped with different behaviors.

As for the lift function, it would just lift you off the ground, like Titania's noble animation does when you're standing. It would still allow you to do anything you would be able to if you were running normally, but without you being affected by ground-based attacks.

[Chewarette]

Increasing the damage of the Tornados could simply be done by giving them absorption capabilities (Nyx-like). All the bullets you shoot at them gets sucked inside the tornado thus enhancing its damage.

The Passive you propose doesn't change a lot. Zephyr should keep her passive gravity reduction everytime. I was thinking about maybe giving her the ability to spawn a tornado when she bulletjumps. That would give some control when you try to escape.

I like your overall concept though. :)

[KaeseSchnitte]

Shooting tornados would be like shooting Mag's Magnetize, with the downside that the Tornados can't be controlled and that their elemental type couldn't be reliably controlled either. Given that enemies CC'd by tornados are very hard to hit reliably, you have to rely on the tornados themselves to kill the enemies, which is best achieved by letting them scale. And scaling with melee mods, or weapon mods in general has been proven to work just fine in the past.

As for her passive, I've deliberately dropped her current passive, as I find it most annoying to play with. For someone who plays Zephyr a lot, or even mains her, I can understand that this would be a significant change, but Warframe should be designed for the majority, and the majority is playing other frames as well. How far jumps and aimglides go has become muscle memory for me. Having a frame that breaks this muscle memory just feels bad to play.

That is why I have proposed this new passive. It allows you to hover in the air and plan your next move or shoot a couple of enemies, but also behaves like other frames do when bullet jumping or aimgliding.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

Ok lets see.

On 3/17/2017 at 11:50 PM, KaeseSchnitte said:

Whenever Zephyr uses an ability, the gravity will be reduced by 90% for the next X seconds

Why would I want my gravity to be inconsistent and constantly changing?
What ability am I going to use that I would like my gravity to be altered for a duration for? Just tailwind since that's the only ability that influences Zephyr in the air. Might as well be a tailwind buff rather than a passive. This doesn't even make sense for the excuse you used.

6 minutes ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

How far jumps and aimglides go has become muscle memory for me. Having a frame that breaks this muscle memory just feels bad to play.

Every time you use a skill Zephyr will break your muscle memory. 

Your grounded tailwind makes Zephyr lose her panic escape option, but I could live with that. But at what cost? Immunity to ground attacks? That's so unnecessary. Increased movement speed? A double buff when applied to Tailwind augment but whatever.

• Loses AoE knockdown and panic escape option for speed buff and ummunity to the 3 ground attacks that exist in the game. 

Does not address current issues with Dive Bomb, just slaps it on 1 just like everyone else. Damage is already effected by height. The range buff is fine though.

What is the difference between Vortex and Tornado? Spawn locations? Effective Range? One traps enemies and the other hurls them?

Speaking of tornado, I mostly use it when there's a crowd of enemies and I'd like them to be dispersed. Its a crowd control ability after all. However with your suggestion, its counterproductive to cast tornado on multiple enemies because it reduces the skills effectiveness (time).

Vortex is a copy of larva and directly competes with tornado.
Tornadoes with melee mods doesn't even make sense. What non physical move scales with melee mods? Let me know and I'll cross this out.

A lot of these suggestions suggest to me that you hardly play Zephyr. 

[KaeseSchnitte]

2 hours ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

Ok lets see.

Why would I want my gravity to be inconsistent and constantly changing?
What ability am I going to use that I would like my gravity to be altered for a duration for? Just tailwind since that's the only ability that influences Zephyr in the air. Might as well be a tailwind buff rather than a passive. This doesn't even make sense for the excuse you used.

The new passive is a grace period, in which you can decide what to do next. Take it as a second aimglide, in which you could angle yourself to use Tailwind, use Kabatic Vortex or Dive Bomb, or simply shoot stuff.

Quote

Every time you use a skill Zephyr will break your muscle memory.

That is not how this works.

Quote

Your grounded tailwind makes Zephyr lose her panic escape option, but I could live with that. But at what cost? Immunity to ground attacks? That's so unnecessary. Increased movement speed? A double buff when applied to Tailwind augment but whatever.

• Loses AoE knockdown and panic escape option for speed buff and ummunity to the 3 ground attacks that exist in the game. 

I've updated my suggestion and moved that part into Zephyr's passive. The speed buff and the friction loss could be removed if deemed too annoying or unfitting, the main point is to provide immunity against ground-based attacks. And if you think that's useless, then you don't seem to play against high-level sapling frones too often.

Quote

Does not address current issues with Dive Bomb, just slaps it on 1 just like everyone else. Damage is already effected by height. The range buff is fine though.

Currently, the damage bonus only applies if Zephyr is traveling atleast 4m before impact and stacks linear with height. My suggestion is meant to give the skill a more pronounced graduation. And the only big issue I currently have with DIve Bomb is that it's limited to diving straight down, which I fixed.

Quote

What is the difference between Vortex and Tornado? Spawn locations? Effective Range? One traps enemies and the other hurls them?

Speaking of tornado, I mostly use it when there's a crowd of enemies and I'd like them to be dispersed. Its a crowd control ability after all. However with your suggestion, its counterproductive to cast tornado on multiple enemies because it reduces the skills effectiveness (time).

Vortex is a copy of larva and directly competes with tornado.
Tornadoes with melee mods doesn't even make sense. What non physical move scales with melee mods? Let me know and I'll cross this out.

Kabatic Vortex is meant to do what the augment Divebomb Vortex is supposed to be doing, just more effective, more reliably and uncoupled from Dive Bomb. Tornado is meant as an area lockdown ability, keeping enemies away from stuff like inteerception consoles or defense objects. And since Tornado makes it pretty annoying trying to kill enemies that are affected by it, included the suggestion to empower Tornado to kill the enemies itself, even if that my be taking longer. As you may have read, I've also written, that tornados respawn automatically if they despawn, so the enemies will be taken care of. And if you have a better idea how to make tornados scale and how to reliably control their elemental type, I'd be eager to hear it.

Quote

A lot of these suggestions suggest to me that you hardly play Zephyr.

That is correct, I'm currently barely playing Zephyr, as there are dozen of other frames who do everything better than Zephyr does. Zephyr is heavily outdated. The fact that using Tail Wind from the ground still costs energy is making that clear. But just because I'm not actively playing Zephyr doesn't mean that I'm unable to see the flaws that hold her back or to come up with suggestions that fix those flaws.

Edited March 21, 2017 by KaeseSchnitte

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

8 minutes ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

The new passive is a grace period, in which you can decide what to do next. Take it as a socond aimglide, in which you could angle yourself to use Tailwind, use Kabatic Vortex or Dive Bomb, or simply shoot stuff.

Your grace period alters your movement which you suggest is the problem with Zephyrs current passive. Considering that players move in between shooting, and casting abilities with jumping, parkour and the likes, what you're saying isn't making much sense. You will be in constant fluctuation between having low gravity properties and not with an ambiguos timer as it resets upon each individual cast.

 

19 minutes ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

I've updated my suggestion and moved that part into Zephyr's passive. The speed buff and the friction loss could be removed if deemed too annoying or unfitting, the main point is to provide immunity against ground-based attacks. And if you think that's useless, then you don't seem to play against high-level sapling frones too often.

This ability itself just isn't good as you delivered it. Ground slams are nothing. If you're that close in the enemies face with Zephyr thats a problem in itself. The real issue it sounds as if you're having is with Sapping Balls. They need a nerf. They are not ground based moved. The ground based moves you are referring to are all AoE moves which is why they affect you even if you're in the air. The community constantly complains about them periodically and they should have their aerial properties removed. I believe that it can and will happen eventually. 

This change is just not impactful to her kit in my opinion.

27 minutes ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

Kabatic Vortex is meant to do what the augment Divebomb Vortex is supposed to be doing, just more effective, more reliably and uncoupled from Dive Bomb. Tornado is meant as an area lockdown ability, keeping enemies away from stuff like inteerception consoles or defense objects. And since Tornado makes it pretty annoying trying to kill enemies that are affected by it, included the suggestion to empower Tornado to kill the enemies itself, even if that my be taking longer. As you may have read, I've also written, that tornados respawn automatically if they despawn, so the enemies will be taken care of. And if you have a better idea how to make tornados scale and how to reliably control their elemental type, I'd be eager to hear it.

Does this suggest that the Vortex is limited to one at a time? Enemies can still attack and shoot while engulfed in the vortex? I dont see a single reason why I'd summon an uncontrollable AI tornado when I can just spawn several vortex to block off choke points and defense locations for less cost and more control.

[KaeseSchnitte]

The reduced gravity for a set period of time and constantly reduced gravity are two completely separate things. One can be controlled, the other can not. The reduced gravity can be displayed as timer if it really should be so hard to keep track of, which I doubt.

How each mechanic functions code-wise is irrelevant. The passive is meant to negate it if it's visually tied to the ground. That includes, but is not limited to Sappling Drone mines, Moa shockwaves, Grineer groundslams, fire or ice patches or mines triggered by tremors.

I've described Kabatic Vortex as a 360° Mag pull and I still stand by that. It doesn't have a duration, it simply pulls enemies to its center and despawns. It has no lasting effect on enemies, but enemies that have been sucked in can then be sucked in by tornados or hit by Dive Bomb. Kabatic Vortex is meant as a setup for those abilities.

Edited March 21, 2017 by KaeseSchnitte

[Birdframe_Prime]

9 hours ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

I don't see Turbulence to be as powerful as you say it is. It only deflects projectiles, not beam weapons, not hitscan weapons, not AoE's, not melee attacks. Furthermore, Turbulence allows you to grief your teammates, by deflecting enemy bullets in their direction. All that is enough of a downside to warrant my suggestions in my opinion.

I think Renova's correct, you barely play Zephyr, (apologies, because you did admit this on him saying so, but this gives it away completely).

Turbulence deflects all incoming projectiles, including hitscan and beam weapons. The only things it does not deflect, which are bugs, not the intended function, are Hellion Rockets (the ones they fire when they're in the air), Flame Throwers, and Scrambus unit Swarmer Detrons (thanks to the over-accurate seeking).

Further, Turbulence does not deflect enemy bullets at allies, especially not hitscan ones, it can actually be used to shield your allies and defense points, such as pods or consoles.

9 hours ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

I appreciate that you can make use of a broken ability, but my aim is to fix Dive Bomb and to make it useful.

Again, I suggest you look at my thread, my fix to Dive Bomb as an actual separate ability from Tailwind is a genuine fix. I'm not 'getting the most' out of it, I'm making it not broken. Thus it wouldn't need to be made part of Tailwind and more functionality could be put into Tailwind itself without adding completely new mechanics such as hovering.

I've played warframe for long enough that I've tried each and every frame, taken each to several hours worth of actual endgame content (not sorties, I mean pushing into levels 200 and above in survivals and defenses). I know what they do, and I know what Zephyr does. Zephyr, if she did what the descriptions say she does, simply wouldn't need anything more than her existing kit. It would be amazing. It should be that good just from what DE attempted to do.

That they haven't actually succeeded isn't due to bad abilities, it's due to bad implementation and the progress of years on the rest of the game.

So, with respect for you as a person, while I appreciate that you want to make the frame better, and I do like some of the ideas you have, I'm not going to blithely say that I think they'll work when I can poke holes in them so readily. 

[KaeseSchnitte]

Well, I think we wont agree on one way to buff Zephyr. I see that Turbulence blocks both hitscan and beam weapons, but atleast for beamweapons, that doesn't make much sense. Turbulence can deflect bullets onto teammates. I'm not saying it does regularely, but Napalm shots for example are getting redirected and could very well hit teammates when they wouldn't have if Zephyr hadn't deflected them.

As for Dive Bomb, I disagree that just increasing its range and it's CC reliability would make it a fun ability to use. If it were good enough to use, players would just use Tail Wind and DIve Bomb back to back for cheap knockdowns, turning Zephyr into a bouncy ball. Being able to aim Dive Bomb gives Zephyr an actual niche, rather than a melee ground slam with bigger range.

At some point you have to ask yourself if Zephyr really is potentially as good as you make her out to be. You yourself said that she is the least played frame on PC, the last time I saw a Zephyr was actually me playing her and that was weeks ago. It's not only that her abilities are largely made irrelevant by the game, it's also that she simply isn't that fun to play. Tornado is not only uncontrollable in where the tornados spawn, but also in how it affects enemies, making it only half as useful as other CC abilities, since you can't actually kill the enemies reliably. Turbulence is an extremely boring ability, the only interactivity is to memorize the cooldown to reactivate it. Dive Bomb, as I've already said, is a glorified melee ground slam.

Tail Wind is the only fun ability, but it has redundand mechanics attached to it, as both Dive Bomb and Tail Wind knock down enemies. There is no other frame in the game, to my knowledge, that has the same effect on different abilities.

My suggestion fixes all of that. Tail Wind would have an effect if used on the ground that is actually useful in tight situations, especially against Corpus. You'd lose your knockdown (scratch that), but that is well made up for with Kabatic Vortex as new ability and her new passive. Dive Bomb would actually be fun to use and have an effect that is impactful and pronounced over a huge distance, making it very reliably. Turbulence would be more active, as it allows to deliberately deflect/destroy projectiles. Tornado would be very close to your suggestion, with the difference that my iteration would make Tornado a channeled ability without constant energy drain. Kabatic Vortex finally buffs both Dive Bomb and Tornado, as it can pull enemies into the affected area, and gives Zephyr a further form of CC.

I appreciate that you are taking time to decribe in-depth how you expect the abilities to work in your own thread, and as for your Tornado description I agree completely, but the rest of Zephyr's abilities need more than just a consistency check. They need an mechanical upgrade that is on par with current designs and that is what I've provided. To be honest, if your suggestion would be implemented, I'd be upset and wouldn't play Zephyr any more than I do now, because I think that her current mechanics are neither good enough to keep up with other warframes, nor are they engaging enough to make me play Zephyr anyways.

Edited March 22, 2017 by KaeseSchnitte

[TenGaugeBoson]

I can get behind this. I like this frame but ...ya .

I love the directional dive bomb idea a lot. that would be pretty awesome.

[KaeseSchnitte]

Glad you like it.

I'm generally pretty happy with this suggestion, but there are some thing I'm unsure about. My suggestion for Zephyr's passive is that she get's lifted up to be immune to ground-based attacks, but I'm unsure what the trigger should be for this. The duration has to be 9 seconds, so you can hack or revive teammates without having to fear to lose the immunity and suddenly be affected by dozens of Sappling Drone mines for example. But if this activates everytime the player uses an ability, then Zephyr would float almost all the time, giving her pseudo-perma immunity to ground-based attacks. Also, if someone were to see the increased movementspeed and decreased friction, which I have parenthesized for that reason, as drawback, it could get pretty annoying for that player to having to deal with this passive all the time. Thus, I've removed the trigger on every use of an ability for now, but I can't think of any better way to trigger than passive.

Another thing I'm unsure about is Dive Bomb, which can be buffed in damage, range or duration of the CC it inflicts. Simultaneously, I've suggested three ways to buff Dive Bomb: By using Tail Wind to launch yourself from the ground, by using the augment, and by travelling enough distance before landing. The question now is which of those three ways to buff Dive Bomb should be tied to one or more of the three possibilities to buff Dive Bomb.

 

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

16 hours ago, Thaylien said:

I think Renova's correct, you barely play Zephyr, (apologies, because you did admit this on him saying so, but this gives it away completely).

Unfortunately OP has convinced himself that he's the savior of Zephyr despite having no experience with her.
Turbulence deflecting bullets on teammates? I mean come the * on lol. I've seen it all now.

Being able to aim dive bomb is a great idea though, I'm glad someone actually thought of a way to improve that useless move.

Its a shame how OP spent yesterday arguing against the fact that I kept saying the proposed passive doesn't make sense to implement considering how low gravity breaks weak muscle memory when it would constantly fluctuate upon skill activation. Only to backtrack on it now.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Okay, let me bring this back to a discussion, because it's kind of devolving into an argument from both of us.

Your whole point against my thoughts is simply that you don't seem to like Zephyr's current skill set, and don't see the potential of it. That's fine, but please, that's not a reason to change up how she plays entirely.

I'm not some rabid fanboy out to destroy your ideas and impose my own instead, it's because I've played this game for three years and understand the mechanics, the changes, the points that everyone keeps making about the game, and see the general direction that DE appear to be pushing things with the reworks and changes they've been making.

I will 100% back the point that she would be as good as I make her out to be, because even in her broken current state, I can take this frame to levels that 90% of players simply don't bother with. Zephyr, if her abilities worked as described, not the unreliable mess that they are in the current game, would be on par with the other frames easily, even rival those that currently do similar things but better.

What we're discussing here isn't so much whether your ideas will work better than mine, but more that your ideas are changing what the frame is and her role in the game, while mine are designed to make her fulfil her original role and have everything back up to spec from what DE tried to implement in the first place.

DE don't add new functions lightly. They buff and add to the existing functions of the frame if the frame/its ability is under-used, like changing up Mag, or Saryn, with mostly (I'm all-too-familiar with the golden age of void farming with a Polarise Mag killing everything) buffed functions so that she's more useful overall, or outputs more damage in Saryn's case, or have new synergy options.

The two frames affected most in their changes are Excal and Limbo. Excalibur lost an ability when Parkour 2.0 came in, because his Super Jump was a skill that was pointless, being a worse Bullet Jump and costing energy (unlike Zephyr's Tailwind, no matter what players seem to harp on about), and they were also aware that his previous 4 was used at great range and strength to make certain nodes irrelevant and a pure affinity farm, so they gave him an ability that put him more in line with the Swordsman frame. Changing up his 4 to do this was the biggest change to a frame they'd ever made, but it re-aligned him with DE's original concept of him as a melee swordsman frame.

Limbo, with his new rework, is giving him actual abilities. His previous abilities were simply 'go into Rift', 'put other things in Rift' and his 4 was 'put a large area into Rift', with that leaving only one ability free to actually DO anything in the Rift, which became a 'deal more damage in the Rift'. His rework shifts his own Riftwalk off the ability casts, which means that he has an ability cast free to do something in the Rift. They've simply buffed all his other existing mechanics, not removed anything, taken things out, just buffed them, added to them. When it goes live, it'll still be Limbo, and much more in line with the original concept of a Rift Plane master.

So, taking that into account, that's why I want to fix Zephyr, rather than completely rework her.

3 hours ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

I appreciate that you are taking time to decribe in-depth how you expect the abilities to work in your own thread, and as for your Tornado description I agree completely, but the rest of Zephyr's abilities need more than just a consistency check. They need an mechanical upgrade that is on par with current designs and that is what I've provided. To be honest, if your suggestion would be implemented, I'd be upset and wouldn't play Zephyr any more than I do now, because I think that her current mechanics are neither good enough to keep up with other warframes, nor are they engaging enough to make me play Zephyr anyways

I think we're talking at cross-terminology, mechanical overhaul is what I'm doing, what you're proposing is changing the abilities around to allow for a new one. Mechanics is what I'm concerned with, consistency is only achieved through fixing the mechanics, but also improvements are made by fixing the mechanics and adding new ones. What you're doing is fine as a starting point if adding abilities is on the menu, I just don't believe it will be, and have to work with what we've got.

But as I pointed out earlier, the things you're adding don't fix what's wrong with her, they just band-aid and hope that nobody notices that all the original problems persist. The closest you've come to fixing her is your Tornado rework, but even with that, you've not addressed any of the troubles that Tornado currently causes, you've just moved them to appear in different places. Tornado will still basically effect enemies the same way, even if the ability doesn't roam around as much and has the energy cost mitigated a little by using the new Desecrate style of energy consumption, and it will still have poor consistency and reliability even if funnels respawn at your new location as you move.

In short, you've not changed the mechanics at all, you've just shuffled them around a little.

If you simply don't like how she plays, regardless, then there's not much I can do to help you out, because what Zephyr was designed to be was a lightweight shock trooper. Get in fast, crash the party, shoot or stab everything that's up close, ignore everything that's not, get out fast, and then throw a Tornado at things when overwhelmed.

Graceful as she might be... she's not designed for ability damage or buffing her team, she's an off-tank, survivable and highly mobile, great for bringing weapons and crowd control into play, but always moving in and out of battle, never staying at long or short range for too much time.

If you prefer better casters or better damage, then Zephyr simply isn't for you in the first place, trying to make her like other frames won't result in her being... Zephyr.

[Arkenai7]

I too will chime in to say I'm not a fan of the proposed change to the passive.

With regards to the point about divebomb being a 'glorified melee slam', I feel the trick there is to actually glorify it rather than make it an energy costing one. If it actually did significant damage, had a significant area of effect, and was aimable, that would go a very long way towards making it an actually useful ability.

Kabatic (Do you mean Katabatic?) vortex would be a nice tool but very similar to one already in the toolkit - tornado. Tornadoes are notoriously uncontrollable, of course, but even with that caveat I can't really imagine very many situations where I'd use it over tornado. I feel Zephyr would be better served by a direct wind push ability that doesn't require her to move with it - something of a ragdoll wave effect.

At the end of this, though, I'm not sure she's much improved.

Edited March 22, 2017 by Arkenai7

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

8 minutes ago, Arkenai7 said:

I too will chime in to say I'm not a fan of the proposed change to the passive.

With regards to the point about divebomb being a 'glorified melee slam', I feel the trick there is to actually glorify it rather than make it an energy costing one. If it actually did significant damage, had a significant area of effect, and was aimable, that would go a very long way towards making it an actually useful ability.

Kabatic (Do you mean Katabatic?) vortex would be a nice tool but very similar to one already in the toolkit - tornado. Tornadoes are notoriously uncontrollable, of course, but even with that caveat I can't really imagine very many situations where I'd use it over tornado. I feel Zephyr would be better served by a direct wind push ability that doesn't require her to move with it - something of a ragdoll wave effect.

At the end of this, though, I'm not sure she's much improved.

He wants to give Zephyr this in regards to vortex

[Arkenai7]

A .gif is worth a thousand words.

[KaeseSchnitte]

2 hours ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

Unfortunately OP has convinced himself that he's the savior of Zephyr despite having no experience with her.
Turbulence deflecting bullets on teammates? I mean come the * on lol. I've seen it all now.

Being able to aim dive bomb is a great idea though, I'm glad someone actually thought of a way to improve that useless move.

Its a shame how OP spent yesterday arguing against the fact that I kept saying the proposed passive doesn't make sense to implement considering how low gravity breaks weak muscle memory when it would constantly fluctuate upon skill activation. Only to backtrack on it now.

I am really sorry that I try to make the best out of my suggestion. I realized that casting Turbulence or Katabatic Vortex while gliding does not necessarilly mean that you'd want to have reduced gravity. Moving the reduced gravity to Tail Wind makes sense, as you'd most likely want to readjust after using Tail Wind. This however has nothing to do with muscle memory. If you press a button that alters your trajectory, then you know what is going to happen. That does not interfere with your muscle memory. However, as I said, there are enough instances in which you'd want to use Turbulence or Katabaic Vortex without changing your trajectory, so the reduced gravity would become a nuisance.

 

1 hour ago, Thaylien said:

Okay, let me bring this back to a discussion, because it's kind of devolving into an argument from both of us.

Your whole point against my thoughts is simply that you don't seem to like Zephyr's current skill set, and don't see the potential of it. That's fine, but please, that's not a reason to change up how she plays entirely.

I'm not some rabid fanboy out to destroy your ideas and impose my own instead, it's because I've played this game for three years and understand the mechanics, the changes, the points that everyone keeps making about the game, and see the general direction that DE appear to be pushing things with the reworks and changes they've been making.

I will 100% back the point that she would be as good as I make her out to be, because even in her broken current state, I can take this frame to levels that 90% of players simply don't bother with. Zephyr, if her abilities worked as described, not the unreliable mess that they are in the current game, would be on par with the other frames easily, even rival those that currently do similar things but better.

What we're discussing here isn't so much whether your ideas will work better than mine, but more that your ideas are changing what the frame is and her role in the game, while mine are designed to make her fulfil her original role and have everything back up to spec from what DE tried to implement in the first place.

DE don't add new functions lightly. They buff and add to the existing functions of the frame if the frame/its ability is under-used, like changing up Mag, or Saryn, with mostly (I'm all-too-familiar with the golden age of void farming with a Polarise Mag killing everything) buffed functions so that she's more useful overall, or outputs more damage in Saryn's case, or have new synergy options.

The two frames affected most in their changes are Excal and Limbo. Excalibur lost an ability when Parkour 2.0 came in, because his Super Jump was a skill that was pointless, being a worse Bullet Jump and costing energy (unlike Zephyr's Tailwind, no matter what players seem to harp on about), and they were also aware that his previous 4 was used at great range and strength to make certain nodes irrelevant and a pure affinity farm, so they gave him an ability that put him more in line with the Swordsman frame. Changing up his 4 to do this was the biggest change to a frame they'd ever made, but it re-aligned him with DE's original concept of him as a melee swordsman frame.

Limbo, with his new rework, is giving him actual abilities. His previous abilities were simply 'go into Rift', 'put other things in Rift' and his 4 was 'put a large area into Rift', with that leaving only one ability free to actually DO anything in the Rift, which became a 'deal more damage in the Rift'. His rework shifts his own Riftwalk off the ability casts, which means that he has an ability cast free to do something in the Rift. They've simply buffed all his other existing mechanics, not removed anything, taken things out, just buffed them, added to them. When it goes live, it'll still be Limbo, and much more in line with the original concept of a Rift Plane master.

So, taking that into account, that's why I want to fix Zephyr, rather than completely rework her.

I think we're talking at cross-terminology, mechanical overhaul is what I'm doing, what you're proposing is changing the abilities around to allow for a new one. Mechanics is what I'm concerned with, consistency is only achieved through fixing the mechanics, but also improvements are made by fixing the mechanics and adding new ones. What you're doing is fine as a starting point if adding abilities is on the menu, I just don't believe it will be, and have to work with what we've got.

I wouldn't say that I don't like Zephyr's kit. If I really wouldn't like Zephyr's kit, I wouldn't bother coming up with suggestions that are meant to improve the kit. For that reason, you'll probably never see me suggesting changes to Excalibur or Ash. I like Zephyr's skill set, I just don't like its current iteration and I'm seeing lots of untapped potential. I'd also strongly disagree with the notion that my suggestion would change how Zephyr plays entirely. You can still launch yourself into the air like you can currently, you can still travel like you can currently, in fact, I've adopted most points you've made in your own thread about Tail Wind, and you will still be able to use Dive Bomb, with the difference that you'd have to endure the slight delay when holding the button and that you'd have to aim straight down to actually dive straight down. But as for the delay, that could be partially counteracted by making Zephyr accelerate after traveling 2m and 8m, so that if you started higher than 8m, you'd actually be faster on the ground than you'd be with the current iteration.

Turbulence would retain it's current functionality, with another one added to give it an active component and the removed thread of accidentially reflecting something into your teammates faces (It neither destroys projectiles, nor does it remove the damage from deflected projectiles, so it is capable of backfiring on your teammates, no matter how slim the chance).

At last, my Tornado suggestion is very similar to your suggestion, so that can't be the reason for your concern that my suggestion would alter Zephyr's playstyle. What is it then? What is the reason that my suggestion would alter Zephyr's playstyle? And how would my suggestion alter it?

The only change I'm suggesting that would have you change the way you play is the removal of permanent low gravity.

Quote

But as I pointed out earlier, the things you're adding don't fix what's wrong with her, they just band-aid and hope that nobody notices that all the original problems persist. The closest you've come to fixing her is your Tornado rework, but even with that, you've not addressed any of the troubles that Tornado currently causes, you've just moved them to appear in different places. Tornado will still basically effect enemies the same way, even if the ability doesn't roam around as much and has the energy cost mitigated a little by using the new Desecrate style of energy consumption, and it will still have poor consistency and reliability even if funnels respawn at your new location as you move.

In short, you've not changed the mechanics at all, you've just shuffled them around a little.

If you simply don't like how she plays, regardless, then there's not much I can do to help you out, because what Zephyr was designed to be was a lightweight shock trooper. Get in fast, crash the party, shoot or stab everything that's up close, ignore everything that's not, get out fast, and then throw a Tornado at things when overwhelmed.

Graceful as she might be... she's not designed for ability damage or buffing her team, she's an off-tank, survivable and highly mobile, great for bringing weapons and crowd control into play, but always moving in and out of battle, never staying at long or short range for too much time.

If you prefer better casters or better damage, then Zephyr simply isn't for you in the first place, trying to make her like other frames won't result in her being... Zephyr.

I don't get why my suggestion would mean that Zephyr's issues wouldn't be fixed? Just because I don't mention it doesn't mean that Dive Bomb ought not get reliable CC that cancels animations. Just because I don't mention that Turbulence should also reflect Helios rockets doesn't mean that that oughtn't be done. As for Tornado, I've suggested that tornados stack with melee mods to partially remedy that, but in general, I think that Tornado is, or should be meant to be unreliable, not as CC, but as a way to kill enemies easily. This would give Tornado a clear advantage and disadvantage. If you want to lock an area down, then use Tornado. If you want to kill the enemies, then don't use Tornado, but other means of CC.

My point is that Zephyr's mechanics, at their core, are currently not fun and engaging enough to keep a large portion of the playerbase interested. Fixing the problems wont help with that. If they would be fun, you'd atleast see some people using her. But you don't.

1 hour ago, Arkenai7 said:

I too will chime in to say I'm not a fan of the proposed change to the passive.

With regards to the point about divebomb being a 'glorified melee slam', I feel the trick there is to actually glorify it rather than make it an energy costing one. If it actually did significant damage, had a significant area of effect, and was aimable, that would go a very long way towards making it an actually useful ability.

I am not a fan of the current passive, so that is the reason why I propsed this change. As for Dive Bomb, that is exactly what I'm suggesting, in addition to it being combined with Tail Wind.

Quote

Kabatic (Do you mean Katabatic?) vortex would be a nice tool but very similar to one already in the toolkit - tornado. Tornadoes are notoriously uncontrollable, of course, but even with that caveat I can't really imagine very many situations where I'd use it over tornado. I feel Zephyr would be better served by a direct wind push ability that doesn't require her to move with it - something of a ragdoll wave effect.

At the end of this, though, I'm not sure she's much improved.

I do indeed mean Katabatic, thanks for pointing that out. The gif posted by Renova is showing what I hope Katabatic Vortex would do pretty well. The difference to Tornado is that Katabatic Vortex has a bigger AoE, being able to draw in enemies, while tornados need to almost touch the enemies to actually affect them.

1 hour ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

He wants to give Zephyr this in regards to vortex

This sums up pretty well what I had in mind, with the difference that Katabatic Vortex would have a way bigger horizontal effect than Orisa's Halt!. A 360° Mag Pull you could call it.

Edited March 22, 2017 by KaeseSchnitte

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

2 hours ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

I am really sorry that I try to make the best out of my suggestion. I realized that casting Turbulence or Katabatic Vortex while gliding does not necessarilly mean that you'd want to have reduced gravity. Moving the reduced gravity to Tail Wind makes sense, as you'd most likely want to readjust after using Tail Wind. This however has nothing to do with muscle memory. If you press a button that alters your trajectory, then you know what is going to happen. That does not interfere with your muscle memory. However, as I said, there are enough instances in which you'd want to use Turbulence or Katabaic Vortex without changing your trajectory, so the reduced gravity would become a nuisance.

 

Thanks, we can finally have a discussion. 

While you may not think the passive proposal doesn't interfere with muscle memory, it completely contradicts what your reasoning was for proposing the change to Zephyrs passive initially. 

On 3/21/2017 at 10:52 AM, KaeseSchnitte said:

far jumps and aimglides go has become muscle memory for me. Having a frame that breaks this muscle memory just feels bad to play.

You've come to acknowledge this, however for some reason you're continuing to defend it. It may be a part of your lack of experience with the frame because a good Zephyr player makes use of consistent moving. Stationary shooting* gets you killed therefore you will be jumping a lot or in the air when applicable. Not every jump is a tailwind. Not every instance of a cast am I looking to have a readjustment period in which I'm low gravity or not and at a limited duration.

You have not put in the practice to mastery Zephyrs movement capability or you just don't want to. Why does DE have to adjust to your preferences when they have players who have learned to make use of the passive and adapt to it? Its not like DE wasn't aware of how to passive altered Zephyrs gravity when they implemented it. That was the point. 

You're not alone in regards to players not wanting to learn Zephyrs passive and peculiar playstyle. She's one of the least used frames. One of the frames has to be. (Probably the least or maybe Atlas b/c people hate archwing and also refuse to adapt.) However that is both a combination of skill gap and DE not having polished the skills in regards to the changing pace of the game.

2 hours ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

I wouldn't say that I don't like Zephyr's kit.

I would ask you to take a second look. 

Zephyrs kit actually should work really well but if suffers in some areas that both @Thaylien and I and a few others have attempted to tackle with the feedback of the community.

• Tailwind suffers from an identity crisis in differentiating it from divebomb
• Divebomb lacks the respective damage and CC that is displayed in every instance of the game.
• Tailwind has inconsistencies and bugs to its nature against certain enemy attacks and units
• Lightweight loses its attributes in combination with aimgliding 
• Tornado fails to have respective control

Just to name a few. 

With changes to buff those skills in a way that they function relatively the same while granting them additional utility they would work well.
Unless you don't like the kit.

However I'm not opposed to suggestions and other people's visions of how Zephyr can be improved upon. While Vortex is just essentially Larva with no duration which I think its that useful, it does give me inspiration as to what a grounded DiveBomb could be. 

Change Divebomb to Vortex.

When Cast while grounded Zephyr casts a ball of wind that moves forward and draws enemies inside. Duration based like 5 secs.  When the duration is up the skill explodes and the wind hurls the enemies inflicting slash procs. That sounds fun, I'll have to remember this one.

[KaeseSchnitte]

In terms of muscle memory, the player is familiar with how far a bullet jump will take the player and at which trajectory. Zephyr's current passive invalidates that muscle memory, since the same action, bullet jumping, has a different result on Zephyr than on any other frame. My suggested passive of Tail Wind does not break that muscle memory. Saying otherwise is like saying that using Valkyr's Rip Line breaks muscle memory, since it's alters the trajectory of the players movement. But that is not what muscle memory is about. If you activate an ability that you know will alter your trajectory, then the altered trajectory comes to no surprise. The passive is a part of Tail Wind, using Tail Wind will activate the passive. That is how the ability will work and that can in no way be interpreted as breaking muscle memory (with the noticable exception that if you have used Tail Wind before the change a lot, then the different behavior may upset your fluidity of gameplay until you adapt to the new behavoir of Tail Wind. And to preemt confusion, that is not comparable to the current situation, as Zephyr's passive coexists with the other warframes, while the old mechanic of Tail Wind will be relaced by the new one.

As for your other points, my suggestion addresses each of that issues you've listed, just in a different way than you would.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

33 minutes ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

In terms of muscle memory, the player is familiar with how far a bullet jump will take the player and at which trajectory. Zephyr's current passive invalidates that muscle memory, since the same action, bullet jumping, has a different result on Zephyr than on any other frame. My suggested passive of Tail Wind does not break that muscle memory. Saying otherwise is like saying that using Valkyr's Rip Line breaks muscle memory, since it's alters the trajectory of the players movement. But that is not what muscle memory is about. If you activate an ability that you know will alter your trajectory, then the altered trajectory comes to no surprise. The passive is a part of Tail Wind, using Tail Wind will activate the passive. That is how the ability will work and that can in no way be interpreted as breaking muscle memory (with the noticable exception that if you have used Tail Wind before the change a lot, then the different behavior may upset your fluidity of gameplay until you adapt to the new behavoir of Tail Wind. And to preemt confusion, that is not comparable to the current situation, as Zephyr's passive coexists with the other warframes, while the old mechanic of Tail Wind will be relaced by the new one.

As for your other points, my suggestion addresses each of that issues you've listed, just in a different way than you would.

Oh it appears you've changed your OP to indicate that the passive now affects only Tailwind. Doesn't make sense being a passive of only Tailwind rather than a direct effect of it but I digress as I'm getting bored of arguing a dead thread.

Kudos to you for changing your OP to fit the narrative, but I can't wait to see what DE has in store for the players when Zephyr's turn finally arrives.

[Arkenai7]

 

13 hours ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

I don't get why my suggestion would mean that Zephyr's issues wouldn't be fixed? Just because I don't mention it doesn't mean that Dive Bomb ought not get reliable CC that cancels animations. Just because I don't mention that Turbulence should also reflect Helios rockets doesn't mean that that oughtn't be done. As for Tornado, I've suggested that tornados stack with melee mods to partially remedy that, but in general, I think that Tornado is, or should be meant to be unreliable, not as CC, but as a way to kill enemies easily. This would give Tornado a clear advantage and disadvantage. If you want to lock an area down, then use Tornado. If you want to kill the enemies, then don't use Tornado, but other means of CC.

To tackle the question of why your suggestion doesn't 'fix' Zephyr's issues, we must first tackle the question of what the issues are.

What do you view them as? My impression from your posts is that you dislike parts of the frame, and have tried to improve those parts. This is a reasonable view, but I don't think it is the full extent of the problem.

 

Consider the following questions:

Why would you play Zephyr?

What does Zephyr bring to a team?

What can Zephyr do that other frames can't?

 

I find that the answers to these questions are more limited than they are with other frames, and I see that as the issue.

Your proposal for 'katabatic vortex' is one of the places you come to adding a good answer to these questions, but I think it's too similar to another part of her toolkit that with some improvements - improvements that it is, IMHO, in need of - could more or less either obsolete it or force it to be a direct copy of Vauban's vortex.

The proposal to merge tailwind with divebomb is a common one, since it frees up a slot for an ability. The typical Zephyr forum squad tends to shy away from implementing new abilities since it seems markedly less likely to actually happen, but if you must create a new ability, I think it important that it neatly answers one of the above questions without stepping heavily on the toes of the other abilities.

My personal opinion is that Zephyr's current toolkit would be entirely sufficient - with improvements. The greatest merit of the tailwind/divebomb merge with divebomb targeting (or just divebomb targeting) proposal is that it improves usability. That's a good change, I would say. There's more to be done to make divebomb a useful ability, but it makes it more fluid to use.

The problem divebomb suffers from is that it lacks any clear role. Why would you use it when you could use a melee slam instead? The range is not superb and not worth building for, the damage is honestly terrible (a full jump from the very top of the moon defence map to the bottom, one of the tallest places in game, will not kill a basic enemy at level 20), and the crowd control value is lacking. I've experimented somewhat with divebomb vortex builds but not only do they require heavy investment to make work, they are also still quite lackluster. Improving the damage scaling and adding range scaling would go a great distance towards making it something you might actually use.

It has the potential to synergise very nicely with tailwind, a key part of Zephyr's kit, which is something that's to be encouraged, IMHO.

13 hours ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

I do indeed mean Katabatic, thanks for pointing that out. The gif posted by Renova is showing what I hope Katabatic Vortex would do pretty well. The difference to Tornado is that Katabatic Vortex has a bigger AoE, being able to draw in enemies, while tornados need to almost touch the enemies to actually affect them.

This sums up pretty well what I had in mind, with the difference that Katabatic Vortex would have a way bigger horizontal effect than Orisa's Halt!. A 360° Mag Pull you could call it.

Tornadoes are notorious for their unreliability. On the range point - I expect that the short tornado pull range is really just due to the awkwardness of using tornado. It's not actually that small, but you can't actually play it effectively. AFAIK power range only affects the distance that tornadoes can spawn at, as well, rather than the pickup range - which is another blow to tornado builds. If it were to do so then larger scale crowd control builds would be possible with Zephyr. The other failing with tornado builds is that unfortunately suspended enemies are rather more difficult to kill than, say, those suspended in Bastille.

 

13 hours ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

My point is that Zephyr's mechanics, at their core, are currently not fun and engaging enough to keep a large portion of the playerbase interested. Fixing the problems wont help with that. If they would be fun, you'd atleast see some people using her. But you don't.

I am not a fan of the current passive, so that is the reason why I propsed this change. As for Dive Bomb, that is exactly what I'm suggesting, in addition to it being combined with Tail Wind.

The only change I'm suggesting that would have you change the way you play is the removal of permanent low gravity. - [edited in from earlier in your post because it fits with this point.]

Hmm. I think on this point we will have to agree to disagree. I, for one, view the current passive as intrinsic to Zephyr and would be deeply disturbed were it to be removed. It can be a hindrance at times, yes - I know I used to find myself hovering above doors for a moment or too quite often - but it just feels so very intertwined with Zephyr that I'm strongly opposed to its removal.

I also view the utility of Zephyr as more of a problem than her 'fun factor'. Not that I'm opposed to improvements in that regard, of course. I do feel that were we to go down the new ability route I would much prefer a ragdoll wind ability of some form. It's not currently something that's in her kit (unless divebomb is changed to do drastically more forceful knockbacks) and I'm sure it answers the fun factor question neatly - Throwing enemies well away is good fun, really.