Ember: Assessment and Suggestions

[Cornelius.EE]

I built Ember Prime relatively recently and she's quickly becoming one of my favorite frames. After doing some testing in the Simulacrum and in sorties (including running solo) I'd like to share my opinion on Ember's current state and provide feedback/suggestions to the devs in case they are considering making any changes. I am aware of other threads/suggestions on this topic but decided to start a separate thread to present my own feedback on Ember in one place as opposed to providing feedback on other people's feedback in many places. I will break this down by ability.

Passive:

Ember is an energy-hungry frame. Her two best abilities benefit from power strength (damage multiplier for Accelerant and status chance for World on Fire). For this reason, I like her passive and have made intentional (though situational) use of it, for example by stepping into environmental fire during the early stages of some missions before Energy Overflow kicks in. I am fine with her passive as is. However, Ember has no damage mitigation abilities. Additionally, most effective Ember builds require modding for range, strength, and efficiency at the same time, which leaves little room for survivability mods. This means that setting yourself on fire could also be really dangerous. As such, giving Ember some amount of passive resistance to fire damage would be welcome. It would make her passive more effective. It won't be too OP either. Consider a typical Grineer crowd. While some resistance to fire damage may help against that Scorch that wants to turn you into chicken barbeque, it won't do anything against the Heavy Gunners, Bombards, and slash procs. Fire resistance will however open up some situational benefits for Ember (not dying as fast if you step on residual napalm fire while reviving a teammate, better survivability at the end of some sabotage missions, etc.)

Fireball:

Advantages:
- Guaranteed single-target CC
- Chance for AoE CC
- One-handed
- Long range

Comments: This is a great first ability as far as first abilities go. I use it mainly as touch-up or emergency CC, for example when I'm reloading and see a heavy that both recovered from my Accelerant stun and was not hit by my Firequake. Being on-handed is what makes this ability useful, since Ember's second and third abilities are both two-handed and her ultimate is semi-random with respect to which enemies it targets. Additionally, Fireball is fun and fits Ember's theme well. Apart from using it for CC during "serious" play, it's entertaining to simply blast low-level enemies. Reminds me a bit of Tim the Enchanter. Overall, I do not think Fireball needs any changes.

Augment: I have not tested the augment extensively, so I have no comments yet.

Accelerant:

Advantages:
- Stun can be re-applied before ability duration expires; can be used for reliable AoE stun lock
- Not limited by line of sight
- Decent damage boost
- Low energy cost (compared to other spammable abilities like Chaos)

Disadvantages:
- Modding for range sacrifices power strength; modding for strength sacrifices range and efficiency
- Only buffs fire damage

Comments: This is an awesome ability in general. I use it primarily for CC against high-level enemies. The damage multiplier is a welcome bonus. The damage boost is irrelevant below level 60 or so since enemies die too fast anyway. Above level 80 or so, it becomes worthwhile to use x4 CP against Grineer and Corrupted, which means that Viral + Fire becomes a good setup. Consider an Akstiletto Prime modded this way: https://goo.gl/WdoyBj and an Ember running with a conservative +25% power strength (we are using Transient Fortitude + Intensify + Overextended). Before Accelerant and assuming we are targeting cloned flesh (armor has been stripped) the Akstiletto does an average of 4707 damage per shot. Adding a x312.5% buff to fire damage results in 8068 total damage, which is a +71.4% increase (I am not including the calculation to save space, but if you'd like to see the details or think I made a mistake, please PM me and I can share my spreadsheet). This is not too far behind the +100% damage bonus from Molecular Prime.

In my view, the neat thing about Accelerant is that its effectiveness as either a CC or a damage amp ability depends on your warframe build, weapon, and weapon build. For instance, we could swap out Transient Fortitude and Intensify for Blind Rage and Primed Continuity. This would result in an increase in power strength (and damage boost from Accelerant) while keeping the efficiency of World on Fire in the same ballpark. However, this significantly increases the energy cost of Accelerant making it impractical to use it for spam CC while WoF is active. One could also get rid of Overextended to get more damage but in a smaller radius (again usefulness for CC is reduced). In general, this is excellent design from the devs: a useful ability with very simple mechanics, two main functions, and interaction with both warframe and weapon builds.

Over the past year or so, several radial abilities have become limited to line of sight only. To the devs: if you decide to nerf Accelerant to line of sight only, please consider giving it a commensurate buff elsewhere. For example, consider the following mechanic:

An enemy affected by Accelerant that suffers a heat proc has a chance to ignite other enemies within 5m if they are also affected by Accelerant. Chance to ignite is affected by power strength. Required distance from ignited target is not affected by power range.

This will result in several things:
- Make Accelerant's usefulness even more dependent on direct player action (positioning, using another ability, using a weapon with high Heat status)
- Create synergy with Fireball and WoF
- Dependence on power strength limits and balances the mechanic (increasing strength to ensure ignite spread and thus CC of enemies out of line of sight comes at the cost of lower ability range and/or efficiency)

Augment: The current augment is good. I defer to other posts in this thread for more detailed commentary.

Fire Blast:

Advantages:
- Radial CC

Disadvantages:
- Range cannot be modified by mods
- Fire ring needs an augment to perform CC
- Moderate energy cost

Comments: This ability could improved. First, the ignite from the initial wave is somewhat redundant because it overlaps with how Accelerant works: Accelerant already CCs enemies in a radius around Ember by causing them to enter an animation similar to an "on fire" animation. Accelerant also outclasses Fire Blast as a source of radial CC because its range can be modded. Second, area denial seems to be part of the concept behind Fire Blast: it blasts enemies out of an area and then damages them if they (re-)enter it. The problem is that area denial is only worth it on higher levels. Enemies below level 50-60 will be easily cut down before they reach a place you and your team are trying to defend. On the other hand, the damage produced by Fire Blast's ring is negligible at higher levels. In other words area denial using Fire Blast is not needed at low levels and does not work on high levels. A simple solution would be to remove the ignition effect from the initial wave and add it (as a chance to ignite) to the fire ring. Ignition chance could be made dependent on power strength. The existing augment does something similar (adds ignition chance to the ring without removing it from the wave), but a used mod slot is too much to pay for simply making an ability non-redundant and usable.

Augment: For the reasons above, I would suggest removing the existing augment and partially incorporating its function into the base ability. Here is one idea for an alternative.

Concussive Bast: Enemies hit by the ability's wave are knocked down (same as base ability). Knocked down enemies are unable to get up for a brief period of time (affected by power duration). Enemies that recover from knockdown have their accuracy reduced by 50%, enemy detection range reduced by 50%, and are deaf to gunfire for the duration of the ability. Accuracy and detection range reduction are affected by power strength. Enemies immune to knockdown are still affected by subsequent debuffs.

One other thing to keep in mind if this ability (base and/or augment) gets a rework is whether to keep the range of the wave and/or the ring independent of range mods or to reduce the base range of either or both but allow it to scale with mods. Scaling with mods would be more interesting since it would allow certain aspects of the ability to be improved at the expense of others (e.g. increased range of initial knockdown at the expense of reduced ring ignite chance). On the other hand, restriction to a specific range is a good balance if other aspects of the ability are very powerful.

World on Fire:

Advantages:
- Decent CC (especially with Augment)
- Can be toggled

Disadvantages:
- Restricted energy gain
- Can only target a limited number of enemies per instance
- Needs either very high power strength or augment for reliable CC

Augment Advantages:
- Reliable CC without maximizing power strength (which allows building for other parameters like range and efficiency)
[Ignition animation from WoF and knockdown from Firequake seem to not always be perfectly synchronized, giving two layers of CC. I need to test this further.]

Augment Disadvantages:
- Knockdown makes aiming for head shots difficult
- Uses mod slot

Comments: WoF, especially with Firequake is a capable CC ability. It is somewhat restricted by only being able to target a limited number of enemies at a time. This becomes more apparent at higher levels because enemies both spawn in greater numbers and take longer to kill. This restriction provides a good balance however. Without it, WoF would be OP. With it, FoW is useful but is not enough to keep you and your team safe in a level 100+ defense or survival. On the other hand, WoF combined with well timed use of Accelerant and sometimes Fireball can effectively lock down an area regardless of enemy level. The requirement for high power strength or for the augment also provides good balance because it reduces the freedom to mod for other things (or uses up an additional slot).

There are two main gripes I know of when it comes to World on Fire. The first is that the ability can effectively kill enemies on low level missions before anyone on the team even gets to see them, which results in a boring experience for everyone involved. This is a legitimate concern. I have seen suggestions on other threads [links and attribution will be added soon] that propose to change the way WoF targets enemies (e.g. by making it focus on enemies closer to the player's aiming reticle). This is meant to both increase the amount of player input needed as well as to reduce "kill stealing" from teammates. Such suggestions have merit, but my personal take on this is that the prioritization of nearby targets that the ability already has is good enough. Restricting WoF activity to an area in front of Ember or to an area close to the player's aim would interfere too much with effective aiming and would seriously reduce WoF's utility for defensive CC. Normally, enemies in front of me that I am directly engaging are not the most dangerous ones: they would already be disabled by procs from my weapons of from Fireball (which I can cast without interrupting shooting or reloads). The enemies I worry more about are the ones I'm not currently focusing on, and it is when WoF hits those that it really shines.

My personal favorite solution to the kill-stealing problem is to reduce the damage that WoF deals to targets in proportion to their distance from Ember. This keeps me happy because I only really care about the heat procs and/or knockdowns since WoF damage falls off very quickly with enemy level. This would also keep my teammates happy because I would no longer be killing everything when we run a level 20 exterminate. As suggested by @RunningTree3 and @Djego27, a possible way to compensate for the nerfed damage at range would be to either buff damage at close range or increase the ability's status chance.

On the other hand, the idea of reducing the number of targets WoF hits per instance or increasing the time between instances [links and attribution will be added soon] is in my opinion counterproductive even if status chance or damage are buffed as compensation. Even though this might limit the havoc WoF wreaks at low levels, it disproportionately reduces its effectiveness as a CC source at high levels. As mentioned earlier in this post, the target per instance limitation is much more noticeable when a WoF instance can no longer inta-kill its targets (and therefore eliminate them from the target pool of the next instance).

Another issue that is sometimes brought up is that WoF requires very little player input, that people just keep it running perpetually, and that this has a negative effect on how fun the game is. I strongly disagree that this is an problem. First, WoF requires no less input than many AoE ultimates already in the game and here to stay, for example Molecular Prime and Irradiating Disarm. Bladestorm was reworked, but Bladestorm deals finisher damage and was able to insta-kill swaths of moderately high-level enemies (before eventually falling off too). WoF cannot get close. In fact if insta-killing stuff is a problem, as said above, I'd be happy to see WoF's damage reduced even further. Disabling enemies on the other hand (by igniting or knocking them down) to allow my teammates to finish them off easier is far more conducive to fun team play. I will leave comments about the reworked Bladestorm to Ash mains.

WoF does require player input and attention, but it is independent of aiming. Of course, one could make a build with max channeling efficiency, max range, and Primed Flow, drop five energy pancakes when one runs out of energy, and otherwise sit around and do nothing. However, using this build and playstyle is far less effective and contributes way less to the team than being active and using a more balanced build. It also gimps Ember's other abilities. It will also result in few kills and get you killed in many missions at about level 80 or above. It is possible to make highly specialized builds for many warframes and simply spam a single ability, but unless a boring play style is the most effective play style, there is no problem. With a more balanced and aggressive Ember build, players have to carefully watch their energy, dose how frequently and when other abilities are used, and choose intervals during which it might be safe to turn WoF off, all while being mobile and killing enemies as fast as possible. This is necessary because energy orbs become the most important energy source to keep WoF going and because WoF become more effective/reliable the fewer enemies there are in its radius. Of course one could use syndicate weapons to gain energy, but that also seriously limits ones loadout.

Conclusion:

Ember, contrary to the opinion of many, is viable in sorties and endless missions if her CC kit is used properly. Aesthetically, she looks great and all her abilities fit her theme well. Her abilities also have relatively simple mechanics, which is usually a plus (for comparison, examine post-rework Volt; I very much like Volt and use him not infrequently, but I also think that simple basic mechanics that allow for interesting dynamics and synergies are a hallmark of good resign). Overall, I think Ember is great and I am grateful to the developers for designing her.

Of course, not all of Ember's kit is perfect. Her third ability, Fire Blast, especially needs adjustments. Accelerant and World on Fire could benefit from minor tweaks as well. When the time comes to give Ember a rework, I'd like to ask the developers to take my feedback and that of other players (especially Ember mains) into account. Overall, I hope that Ember's abilities will be adjusted to make them more effective and to create interesting synergies while at the same time keeping her kit streamlined and not departing far from her Ember's current design.

Edited May 16, 2017 by Cornelius.EE

[POIKILO]

9 minutes ago, DarkRuler2500 said:

Do you really believe anyone is actively reading that wall of text?
If you want to bring forth some suggestions to Ember you really should focus on the necessary things.

I don't know whether to be confused, appalled, or both. I certainly read it and have read posts like this if not longer. Some Warframes and game mechanics warrant genuinely thorough feedback, even if it ends up being a "wall of text." You might not have the attention span or care about this enough to read through OP's post but others certainly do. If you want to add some constructive comments about Ember, why didn't you make a reply of your own highlighting said necessary things instead?

That out of the way, nice analysis and suggested changes. I do agree Ember is great for CC, even in her current state. Sure, some of her abilities could be improved but hopefully not through complicated, drastic changes. Last thing we need is any of her abilities becoming Volt's current Electric Shield and its numerous nuances.

[DarkRuler2500]

1 hour ago, POIKILO said:

I don't know whether to be confused, appalled, or both. I certainly read it and have read posts like this if not longer. Some Warframes and game mechanics warrant genuinely thorough feedback, even if it ends up being a "wall of text." You might not have the attention span or care about this enough to read through OP's post but others certainly do. If you want to add some constructive comments about Ember, why didn't you make a reply of your own highlighting said necessary things instead?

That out of the way, nice analysis and suggested changes. I do agree Ember is great for CC, even in her current state. Sure, some of her abilities could be improved but hopefully not through complicated, drastic changes. Last thing we need is any of her abilities becoming Volt's current Electric Shield and its numerous nuances.

Just to clarify. I read all of OP's text and i mostly agree with him in this topic.

However since I tend to post larger text walls myself, I just wanted to express, that most of the time large texts are ignored.

It was just an advise that highlightning, underlining or general formatting is beneficial here.

Sorry if that came over wrong.

[Justice_Ember]

I summon the Ember users for comments @Ordosan @Djego27

I'll be commenting for real tomorrow I'm already missing too much sleep.

[POIKILO]

@DarkRuler2500, my apologies then. Tone is a bit difficult to convey and read through text.

[Mousarchy]

by the name of the Arbiters. im a known player on the forums now...

I do like you seem to understand ember so ill add some tide bits as I read

Passive. ya I agree. its an awsome passive. more str and regen when on fire...but due to scaling past 100 (or even less depending on situation) fire can destroy ember as badly as any other. while fire "damage" itself should get mitigated. having a cap on how much each TICK of a fire proc hits would aliviate her pain

1. Augment. suffers the same as frost...IMPOSSIBLE to land on allies. saryn and oberon are the easiest (and to a lesser extend volt basicaly instant) on target casts. while the damage boost is INSANE (specially combo'd with your accelerant) its too hard to land to make use of it with out either making them sit,being a good aim,shooting several times,or being lucky.


2 accelerant. my personal favorite ability (Im actually built around accelerant and heat. viral/heat ignis and corrosive/fire basolk and whatever/fire atomos.) and I actually like the augment. specially since apparently the fire damage buff is applied to the caster now. so with the augment you can give yourself and your allies a good deal of cast speed and a really good damage buff that synergizes with accelerant itself further increasing its use. (and considering alot of people either go corrosive or pure crit. most times the fire damage wont end up merged anyways)

3. fire blast. your augment idea is a bit too much but i more or less agree on the rest. the fire ring itself is more or less useless. even on a mid game mission like akkad it dosnt do much of anything. also only the RING does damage. so once they getinto the circle they dont take damage. would like to see that ability have SOME kind of synergy with ember though. mabey even a small power boost (even if you need to turn the augment into that) when shes standing inside her ring of fire. ...but ya having the ring have the proc chance (since the wave is already a strong knock back. best part of her initial minor update/rework) would make more since.

4.World on fire...ya this is a toggle and forget ability for me. I dont really build for it but since my ember is USUALLY in the frey its nice to have the constant damage iminating from me. but honestly if we have to look at this power we should probly look at things like equinox whos comes with a (i belive larger) range and can be ended with a massive nuke.
would be nice for some tweaks. mostly to have it priortize things closest to you.  but alot of people have tackled this. everything from turning it into a fire cloak or aoe burst up to having it spawn a field of fire. Its my least cared for ability so i wont speak much on this ability exactly (heck until her update i never even USED world on fire)

Edited May 10, 2017 by Ordosan

[Justice_Ember]

9 hours ago, Cornelius.EE said:

giving Ember some amount of passive resistance to fire damage would be welcome. It would make her passive more effective. It won't be too OP either. Consider a typical Grineer crowd. While some resistance to fire damage may help against that Scorch that wants to turn you into chicken barbeque, it won't do anything against the Heavy Gunners, Bombards, and slash procs. Fire resistance will however open up some situational benefits for Ember (not dying as fast if you step on residual napalm fire while reviving a teammate, better survivability at the end of some sabotage missions, etc.)

As for passive goes I doubt we will ever see something like damage reduction to a specific type of damege, for that would mean reworking all elemental frames, however this other thread talks extensively about passive suggestions, I personally believe that Ember's passive should be buff based on the amount of abilities casted, physical buffs related to her weapons, parkour and speed.

9 hours ago, Cornelius.EE said:

Overall, I do not think Fireball needs any changes.

Agreed.

9 hours ago, Cornelius.EE said:

(Accelerant) Over the past year or so, several radial abilities have become limited to line of sight only. Such a change might not be unreasonable for Accelerant.

True, in that case we should consider adding a DOT type of CC for scalability, thus making it's damage stay the same while making the CC stay longer avoiding spamming of the same

9 hours ago, Cornelius.EE said:

(Fireblast) The existing augment does something similar (adds ignition chance to the ring without removing it from the wave), but a used mod slot is too much to pay for simply making an ability non-redundant and usable.

I think that it should work similar to Frost's Snow globe in that it clears an area of enemies while adding a status proc, as for the ring, there's no logical reasoning behind it not scaling with range mods

9 hours ago, Cornelius.EE said:

WoF does require player input and attention, but it is independent of aiming.

WoF It's interesting, and depends too much on playstyle to mod, I use a range+firequake build for meele Ember so that far away units get CC'd while I deal with close enemies and I've also modded for no range + full strenght+duration to kill enemies right next to me. It's hard to tweak it without giving one paystyle the advantage over the other, and I doubt Ember players mod for just one or two situations, many are probably short of loadouts in that regard.

9 hours ago, Cornelius.EE said:

(Ember) contrary to the opinion of many, is viable in sorties and endless missions if her CC kit is used properly. Aesthetically, she looks great and all her abilities fit her theme well. Her abilities also have relatively simple mechanics

Completely agreed. However there are a few rough edges which are constantly being presented in this subforum

9 hours ago, Cornelius.EE said:

Of course, not all of Ember's kit is perfect. Her third ability, Fire Blast, especially needs adjustments. Accelerant and World on Fire could benefit from minor tweaks as well.

Great assessment. Read on some of this threads to get a few suggestions, adding them and crediting the authors would be great considering the effort you put on this.

I think that any change should start on her passive tho, and expand from there. Also keep in mind that Ember in particular allows multiple playstyles and as such we have to consider everything when suggesting changes.

[RunningTree3]

Firstly, thanks for the well considered write-up.

22 hours ago, Cornelius.EE said:

Passive:

Ember is an energy-hungry frame. Her two best abilities benefit from power strength (damage multiplier for Accelerant and status chance for World on Fire). For this reason, I like her passive and have made intentional (though situational) use of it, for example by stepping into environmental fire during the early stages of some missions before Energy Overflow kicks in. I am fine with her passive as is. However, Ember has no damage mitigation abilities. Additionally, most effective Ember builds require modding for range, strength, and efficiency at the same time, which leaves little room for survivability mods. This means that setting yourself on fire could also be really dangerous. As such, giving Ember some amount of passive resistance to fire damage would be welcome. It would make her passive more effective. It won't be too OP either. Consider a typical Grineer crowd. While some resistance to fire damage may help against that Scorch that wants to turn you into chicken barbeque, it won't do anything against the Heavy Gunners, Bombards, and slash procs. Fire resistance will however open up some situational benefits for Ember (not dying as fast if you step on residual napalm fire while reviving a teammate, better survivability at the end of some sabotage missions, etc.)

 

The passive is conceptually fitting -- both the idea of increasing power intensity, as well as having a limited 'Rage mod' effect that works even with shields up.

One issue is that the effect is based on proc duration and ticks. Right now a weaker heat proc over a longer duration is more useful to Ember than a strong heat proc over a short duration. Which is why I bring up the idea of Rage, and whether or not it is possible to have the effect scale based on the damage the heat proc deals to Ember. This is only one consideration, because you do bring up the issue of survival.

Heat damage resistance is often raised, but usually countered (understandably) with the idea of being fair to the other elemental frames. My suggestion for a middle ground is for this resistance to apply only while Ember is burning. And if so, kill two ospreys with one stone: why not make it an overall damage resistance while the proc is active (a nod to the old Overheat). The limited duration and the need to actually be damaged would itself be a balancing factor. After all, the moment the passive procs is usually when Ember is encouraged to play aggressive.

The third thing to look at is the availability and distribution of environmental hazards. Invasions, sortie hazards, and ship sabotage tile-sets are great. But across the general starchart only Grineer shipyards on Ceres have reliable sources of heat procs. I thought the bonfires from Silver Grove were great additions, and would love to see more of them on Earth. I would also love to see things like the heat generators on Corpus ice planets leaving temporary fire hazards when destroyed. Same with exploding barrels.

 

23 hours ago, Cornelius.EE said:

Fire Blast:

Advantages:
- Radial CC

Disadvantages:
- Range cannot be modified by mods
- Fire ring needs an augment to perform CC
- Moderate energy cost

Comments: This ability could improved. First, the ignite from the initial wave is somewhat redundant because it overlaps with how Accelerant works: Accelerant already CCs enemies in a radius around Ember by causing them to enter an animation similar to an "on fire" animation. Accelerant also outclasses Fire Blast as a source of radial CC because its range can be modded. Second, area denial seems to be part of the concept behind Fire Blast: it blasts enemies out of an area and then damages them if they (re-)enter it. The problem is that area denial is only worth it on higher levels. Enemies below level 50-60 will be easily cut down before they reach a place you and your team are trying to defend. On the other hand, the damage produced by Fire Blast's ring is negligible at higher levels. In other words area denial using Fire Blast is not needed at low levels and does not work on high levels. A simple solution would be to remove the ignition effect from the initial wave and add it (as a chance to ignite) to the fire ring. Ignition chance could be made dependent on power strength. The existing augment does something similar (adds ignition chance to the ring without removing it from the wave), but a used mod slot is too much to pay for simply making an ability non-redundant and usable.

Augment: For the reasons above, I would suggest removing the existing augment and partially incorporating its function into the base ability. Here is one idea for an alternative.

Accelerant and Fire Blast do indeed have a strange overlap.

Enemies caught in an animation generally cannot be knocked-down or ragdolled, a limitation of the game mechanics itself. This can limit Fire Blast's area-clearing effect either because Accelerant has recently been cast or some other animation, usually Ignite via Ember, has just procced. Fire Blast's guaranteed Heat proc at least offsets this -- in much the same way that Snow Globe will still freeze enemies even if it is unable to knock them back due to animation lock.

Since I brought up Snow Globe, might I mention the comparable energy cost of Fire Blast at 75e. Not necessarily saying Fire Blast should be cheaper (personally would even say Snow Globe is too inexpensive for its effect).

Your idea of incorporating the augment would be a positive change. Or allow Power Strength to increase the proc chance.

As for Fire Fright augment, I might even suggest it could cause a short moment of Terrify (enemies running away), obviously not at the same level as Nekros.

 

23 hours ago, Cornelius.EE said:

World on Fire:

Advantages:
- Decent CC (especially with Augment)
- Can be toggled

Disadvantages:
- Restricted energy gain
- Can only target a limited number of enemies per instance
- Needs either very high power strength or augment for reliable CC

-snip-

The enemies I worry more about are the ones I'm not currently focusing on, and it is when WoF hits those that it really shines. My personal favorite solution to the kill-stealing problem is to reduce the damage that WoF deals to targets in proportion to their distance from Ember. This keeps me happy because I only really care about the heat procs and knockdowns since WoF damage falls off very quickly with enemy level. This would also keep my teammates happy because I would no longer be killing everything when we run a level 20 exterminate.

Damage fall-off over distance would be a very logical consideration! And if the community feels a compensation is required, then buff the very-close-range damage.

[Cornelius.EE]

@zzzNitro, @Ordosan and @RunningTree3 thank you very much for your responses. May I incorporate some of your suggestions (with attribution) into my original post?

I plan to go over this again this weekend and reference content in other threads as well (as I should have done from the get-go).

Edited May 11, 2017 by Cornelius.EE

[Somb3rBivalve]

I just wish she had some way to trigger her passive within her kit. Maybe something like using accelerant (or some other power) while also inside a fire ring from your three will light you on fire that won't cause that much damage. Something like 30-50 damage per second would be alright.

I agree, it's such a cool passive its just so insanely situational and in most situations against things like napalms, it just gets me killed...

[Justice_Ember]

22 minutes ago, Cornelius.EE said:

@zzzNitro, @Ordosan and @RunningTree3 thank you very much for your responses. May I incorporate some of your suggestions (with attribution) into my original post?

I plan to go over this again this weekend and reference content in other threads as well (as I should have done from the get-go).

Sure go ahead!

[Hellmaker2004]

So i have a old love for Ember, she was one of my favorite frame for a very long time and she was also my first Primed Frame if i remember correctly. It was way back when you could farm for her and although my memory is really bad i still remember some random people helping me get her parts and i dare to say i had very little to offer in aid since my mods were both poor and i was a fresh player, i probably spent more time loosing damage to our team since they had to revive me but it was still a fun run and i am forever grateful for those poor sods that not only helped me get the parts, but also used there own Void Keys and kept me alive.

This was of course before i learnt there was a healing frame and sadly i do love playing support instead of offensive. These days i barely take her out unless there is a easy low level mission that i only want to blast trough, and although there is nothing bad having a frame that can excel at that, i do believe she deserves so much more than that.

 

Her current kit is overpriced for what it does and can only really excel either as a low level rush frame or as a high level Crowd control frame, and to be honest as a crowd control frame there are so many other who can perform that role better. And her damage late game only works if you play with Accelerate and weapons.

So why am i bringing all this nonsense up? well i think that Ember deserves to be in a better place! Even tough i barely play her.

 

So what would be my ideas?

Fireball
 

Spoiler

 

Embers first ability is in a overall good state, but i would say it could be improved ever so slightly. First off, instead of detonating once the fireball hit a foe, it would instead create a fire puddle that falls down to the ground. Scoring a head-shot with the fireball will increase the ring size but will not have any other effect on the ring itself.

The fire patch will provide two primary purposes, one it will act as a area denier that deals damage to foes that enters it and have a chance to set the heat status, and the secondary effect is that when and only for the Ember player enters the fire patch she herself will receive the heat status effect.

The ring would scale with Power Strength(Damage and status chance), Power Duration(Patch Duration) and if the fireball head-shot the patch would of of course be increased in Size.

 

This would give her a easy way to benefit from her own current passive. The idea is also that the new heat effect will override the current heat status and preferably protect her from new incoming heat status while it last, although i am not sure if those two things are doable.

It would also make the current augment Fireball Frenzy a lot better and more reliable since it could be change so allies receive the buff if they step inside the fire patch.

 

 

Accelerant

Stay as it is. This skill is perfectly fine in every way.

 

Fire Blast

Spoiler

 

One of her least useful skills and way over cost for what it does, it does currently work as a area denial tool but until the enemies decided that the ring itself is not that dangerous. And in all honesty it is not, the Wave barely deals any damage and although the knock back is nice it is way over cost for the effect, the ring also suffers from the same effect that it deals way to little damage for how much it cost. I would propose that this and World On Fire switch places, i know a really weird suggestion but bear with me on this.

So Fire Blast still gives the Fire Wave, that knock back and deal small damage on foes. However the fire Ring it spawns is going to be changed. First although it is still using the same aesthetic of the old fire ring, but it no longer has a hole in the middle it also falls down to the ground. The outer ring is only a visual representation on where it ends. So foes entering the ring will take damage anywhere they are, and a added effect is that allies and ember standing in it receives a damage resistance buff.

And finally here is the kicker, If the Ember player uses the skill again so that two fire rings overlap, instead of spawning a second one it will instead absorb the old one and create a new one that has increased size.

 

Clearly there has to be a maximum amount of fire rings a single ember can maintain and the Size it can grow into will clearly have a maximum size so that you can not cover the whole map. But this would give Ember some needed survivability and yet she is still a caster frame, only capitalizing on her strength when she stay inside her own element as much as possible.

 

 

World On Fire

Stay as it is except switch place with Fire Blast.

 

 

And that is pretty much my ideal scenario of how they would change her in my opinion. All skills in her tool would serve a purpose.

Her number one ability would serve as a mid damage skill that even when it falls off due to scaling still provides a small Area Denial / Crowd Control tool, that also can be used to trigger Embers own Passive. The augment would also be more reliable since it i a lot easier for allies to react and respond towards a fire patch instead of poor ember trying to hit allies performing back flips and front flips more energetic than professional acrobatics do.

Her number two skill remains her primary crowd control skill and force multiplier for fire damage.

Her number three skill would also remain the same except for the fact it has switched place on the cast "bar".

And finally her "New" number four would provide Ember with some sorely needed team defensive support / personal buff in the form of survivability. It would also be more inline with the cost of the skill and by removing the hole in the ring and the capability to extend the size it would truly work as a Area denial tool that for once punishes foes that enter it. It would probably also buff the augment Fire Fright since foes will continuously take damage for as long as they stay inside the ring.

[Mousarchy]

18 hours ago, Cornelius.EE said:

@zzzNitro, @Ordosan and @RunningTree3 thank you very much for your responses. May I incorporate some of your suggestions (with attribution) into my original post?

I plan to go over this again this weekend and reference content in other threads as well (as I should have done from the get-go).

ya. i mean if you like the idea take them in. thats how things hsould be.

[3allvalve]

Ember is one amazing frame. But before you start thinking nerf. Let me tell you why she is SO limited. I would love to call her my favorite, but as most will find, she is quite the lower level frame. Get up in the mids and other frames start looking so much better. As it should be right? But advanced missions are simply out if her league. That being said, shes a great little low-level farmer and I love her, so please, no more de-buffs for her, okay?

Edited May 13, 2017 by 3allvalve
A redundant word.

[Justice_Ember]

1 hour ago, 3allvalve said:

Ember is one amazing frame. But before you start thinking nerf. Let me tell you why she is SO limited. I would love to call her my favorite, but as most will find, she is quite the lower level frame. Get up in the mids and other frames start looking so much better. As it should be right? But advanced missions are simply out if her league. That being said, shes a great little low-level farmer and I love her, so please, no more de-buffs for her, okay?

Did you even read the topic? 

[3allvalve]

ZzzNitro...

Ember: Assesment and suggestions..."Did you even read" my post? Thanks for existing tho.

And to Cornelius...

Thank you for taking the time to write that. While I can't say I agree with all of it, I admire your effort. I am refraining from such detailed refrences to strengths and weakness of what is certainly one of my favorite frames, for what changes may come. There is much of your post I disagree with, sorry, but I play her how I play her. And I know I dont have to ask if you understand that.

Edited May 13, 2017 by 3allvalve
to address both parties' due

[Djego27]

On 10.5.2017 at 5:15 AM, Cornelius.EE said:

Passive:

Ember is an energy-hungry frame. Her two best abilities benefit from power strength (damage multiplier for Accelerant and status chance for World on Fire). For this reason, I like her passive and have made intentional (though situational) use of it, for example by stepping into environmental fire during the early stages of some missions before Energy Overflow kicks in. I am fine with her passive as is. However, Ember has no damage mitigation abilities. Additionally, most effective Ember builds require modding for range, strength, and efficiency at the same time, which leaves little room for survivability mods. This means that setting yourself on fire could also be really dangerous. As such, giving Ember some amount of passive resistance to fire damage would be welcome. It would make her passive more effective. It won't be too OP either. Consider a typical Grineer crowd. While some resistance to fire damage may help against that Scorch that wants to turn you into chicken barbeque, it won't do anything against the Heavy Gunners, Bombards, and slash procs. Fire resistance will however open up some situational benefits for Ember (not dying as fast if you step on residual napalm fire while reviving a teammate, better survivability at the end of some sabotage missions, etc.)

 

The main issue with it is that on low level weapons if the map is not under the "fire" condition it is next to impossible to trigger it, given that you most likely kill units like scorches or Napalms before they can set you on fire and on high levels it is just lethal what makes it also pointless. Given that a channelling ability also disables the energy gain from the passive, it is only really a thing for melee where you do not use WoF. Even then you need to roll or life strike constantly to negate the dot damage and certainly not that much of a deal, given that the energy you get from it is trivial compared to what you burn with casts and quick thinking and generate with rage. 

I would prefer something more active that is based on head shots and restore a small amount of hp(like 2-4 per head shot) or gives like 1% power strength for 10s(stackable till like 15-20%) because I think that mechanics like arcane rage and victory are great since they give you something you can do actively as a player to improve your damage output or survivability.

On 10.5.2017 at 5:15 AM, Cornelius.EE said:

Consider an Akstiletto Prime modded this way: https://goo.gl/WdoyBj and an Ember running with a conservative +25% power strength (we are using Transient Fortitude + Intensify + Overextended). Before Accelerant and assuming we are targeting cloned flesh (armor has been stripped) the Akstiletto does an average of 4707 damage per shot. Adding a x312.5% buff to fire damage results in 8068 total damage, which is a +71.4% increase (I am not including the calculation to save space, but if you'd like to see the details or think I made a mistake, please PM me and I can share my spreadsheet). This is not too far behind the +100% damage bonus from Molecular Prime.

In my view, the neat thing about Accelerant is that its effectiveness as either a CC or a damage amp ability depends on your warframe build, weapon, and weapon build. For instance, we could swap out Transient Fortitude and Intensify for Blind Rage and Primed Continuity. This would result in an increase in power strength (and damage boost from Accelerant) while keeping the efficiency of World on Fire in the same ballpark. However, this significantly increases the energy cost of Accelerant making it impractical to use it for spam CC while WoF is active. One could also get rid of Overextended to get more damage but in a smaller radius (again usefulness for CC is reduced). In general, this is excellent design from the devs: a useful ability with very simple mechanics, two main functions, and interaction with both warframe and weapon builds.

It is a bit stronger then Mprime, roar or similar 100% damage buff abilities, however only if you combine it with a weapon modded around fire damage stacking and if you use negative duration and limited range to archive a high power strength. It also happens to be stronger on status modded weapons compared to the normal +100% damage buffs, because the damage loss of using 60% over 90% damage mods is close to zero given that all the scaling is focused on just one element, that you can stack on a lot of status modded weapons.

If I could change something, I would add 5-10% base status chance(scalable with power strength) to all weapons while accelerant is in effect This does 2 things.

1. It moves a part of what can give a frame like Ember actually quite good scalability at higher levels into the frame itself instead being the result of a massive gear and mod grind, that also can provide it, but makes it unattainable by most players.

2. It makes Ember more resistant to the way DEs does rebalance status weapons like the boar prime. This is mostly because accelerant modding mostly results in binary state on many status weapons, where they can work great or are just weak options on Ember, what is not present on normal damage buffing frames. There are also no acranes or mods that can provide that ability currently, different to crit and other means of scaling, where they are present.

On 10.5.2017 at 5:15 AM, Cornelius.EE said:

Over the past year or so, several radial abilities have become limited to line of sight only. Such a change might not be unreasonable for Accelerant. To the devs: if you do decide to nerf Accelerant to line of sight only, please consider giving it a commensurate buff elsewhere. For example, consider the following mechanic (either as part of the ability or as an augment):

An enemy affected by Accelerant that suffers a heat proc has a chance to ignite other enemies within 5m (limited by LoS) if they are also affected by Accelerant. Chance to ignite is affected by power strength. Required distance from ignited target is not affected by power range.

Augment: The current augment is decent, but given that Ember is so starved when it comes to mod slots, I never use it. If Accelerant is changed to be LoS limited but the mechanic proposed above is considered too OP to include in the base ability, please consider implementing it as an augment instead of Flash Accelerant.

Abilities like radial blind or prism got LoS because you could keep the hole map perma stunned with it for a much longer time then the quick CC by the blind mechanic(similar as you can with Frost). What you do with accelerant you can do with Crush or Miasma as well, with the difference that you are not locked into a cast animation, leading to a more fluid game play on Ember. Given that Ember is for the most part a frame that got much more consistent CC then other damage frames and much more damage then CC frames with the issues how LoS works in Warframe and a frame that got different to frames like Mirage or Excalibur very limited survivability without it DE most likely do allow it on purpose on Ember.

The augment is in my own opinion great since the change that adds the effect to Ember as well, with only one flaw. The flaw would be that the fire it provides combines with other elements, instead of being treated as stand alone damage. It would be much better if it works like Toxic lash, what allows to mod corrosive on a melee weapon and still add toxic for other mechanics to work on it. This would be otherwise only possible on a corrosive base damage weapon for Saryn(we only got 2 in the hole game), similar as it works on Ember with radiation/fire what is very powerful but limited to only a hand full of weapons in the game for Ember. While it is a damage loss on weapons fully build around accelerant, it would allow Ember to not turn toxic into gas vs Corpus(that is probably unwanted by most players) while providing the fire damage that makes accelerant useful to any player in your team, independent on how they modded her weapon what is one of the reasons why Ember is not really perceived as team buffing damage frame different to nova or saryn.

Even solo it can be a damage gain on weapons that are to limited in mod space for more then one 60% fire damage mod(like the prisma grakata) or a lot of melee weapons, where mod space is incredible short for a frame like Ember.

It is what a augment should be in my opinion, a choice what can be better or worse then other options in that slot, depending on the situation you use it in.

As for fire blast, it should have the hole ring on fire with the WoF status chance to inflict a fire proc. This would make it much better when it comes to defend stuff against melee units and would allow to slow enemy units down at specific points, similar as frost can, what is very useful.

As for WoF I agree that it should be reduced in damage for lower levels while buffed in status chance a bit to be less depended on high power to work as reliable CC tool at higher levels.

On 10.5.2017 at 2:07 PM, Ordosan said:

would be nice for some tweaks. mostly to have it priortize things closest to you.  but alot of people have tackled this. everything from turning it into a fire cloak or aoe burst up to having it spawn a field of fire. Its my least cared for ability so i wont speak much on this ability exactly (heck until her update i never even USED world on fire)

 It already does this, kind of. While the mechanic is not flawless, it is much better then back in the days when it did not, where it did hit something random that might most likely not be the charger that is next to you and will kill you in a single hit at higher levels.

On 13.5.2017 at 3:02 AM, 3allvalve said:

Ember is one amazing frame. But before you start thinking nerf. Let me tell you why she is SO limited. I would love to call her my favorite, but as most will find, she is quite the lower level frame. Get up in the mids and other frames start looking so much better. As it should be right? But advanced missions are simply out if her league. That being said, shes a great little low-level farmer and I love her, so please, no more de-buffs for her, okay?

AOE damage falloff is the same as on other frames. The reason why most people have such a hard one for WoF is because this is all they use and all the know about Ember. Maybe also a issue that DE decided to throw unreasonable high EHP or survivability on everything in the past instead of fixing her bad design of enemy scaling damage, that makes little to no sense compared to the actual HP pools of most frames at higher levels, reducing the game to the god mode, cheese and map CC fest we unfortunately play today instead of a interesting space ninja shooter.

There is on a performance level little difference between Ember and other damage frames at high levels(if you exclude the broken things) and there should be none, given that Ember is a damage frame just like them, while being a bit more squishy as a trade-off for having the better CC and that you can get more punch out of specific status weapons.

 

[Mousarchy]

7 hours ago, Djego27 said:

 It already does this, kind of. While the mechanic is not flawless, it is much better then back in the days when it did not, where it did hit something random that might most likely not be the charger that is next to you and will kill you in a single hit at higher levels.

 

 

ya. I knew the initial cast prioritized. wasnt 100% sure on the sustained blasts. like I said. I dont really care for WoF on my ember since i only started using it after her first update when i could turn it on and forget it (since i run a half duration ember)

[Djego27]

I am fairly sure the channelling follows the same rules then the initial blast, given that being right on top of a target is most of the time the safest distance and longer range units like balistas are incredible painful because they are mostly unaffected if you do not spot them early and get on top of them.

[Cornelius.EE]

12 hours ago, Djego27 said:

It is a bit stronger then Mprime, roar or similar 100% damage buff abilities, however only if you combine it with a weapon modded around fire damage stacking and if you use negative duration and limited range to archive a high power strength. It also happens to be stronger on status modded weapons compared to the normal +100% damage buffs, because the damage loss of using 60% over 90% damage mods is close to zero given that all the scaling is focused on just one element, that you can stack on a lot of status modded weapons.

If I could change something, I would add 5-10% base status chance(scalable with power strength) to all weapons while accelerant is in effect

I completely agree, and thank you for the elaboration. I mostly intended to show that Accelerant is still powerful even with a build with very modest power strength.

12 hours ago, Djego27 said:

Abilities like radial blind or prism got LoS because you could keep the hole map perma stunned with it for a much longer time then the quick CC by the blind mechanic(similar as you can with Frost). What you do with accelerant you can do with Crush or Miasma as well, with the difference that you are not locked into a cast animation, leading to a more fluid game play on Ember. Given that Ember is for the most part a frame that got much more consistent CC then other damage frames and much more damage then CC frames with the issues how LoS works in Warframe and a frame that got different to frames like Mirage or Excalibur very limited survivability without it DE most likely do allow it on purpose on Ember.

I really hope that DE is keeping Accelerant independent of LoS on purpose. Despite the wording in my original post (which I will presently go back to and edit), I do not think a LoS nerf would be good for Ember. Basically, I have some anxiety that it might be hit with the nerf bat without a good reason and wanted to provide a mechanic that might mitigate a possible LoS nerf.

[Mousarchy]

11 hours ago, Cornelius.EE said:

I completely agree, and thank you for the elaboration. I mostly intended to show that Accelerant is still powerful even with a build with very modest power strength.

I really hope that DE is keeping Accelerant independent of LoS on purpose. Despite the wording in my original post (which I will presently go back to and edit), I do not think a LoS nerf would be good for Ember. Basically, I have some anxiety that it might be hit with the nerf bat without a good reason and wanted to provide a mechanic that might mitigate a possible LoS nerf.

dont forget. accelerant also dosnt open finishers or stealth damage bonuses when stunned and require fire dmg for the bonus dmg. I think that in itself is its "limiting factor" while blind was a recastable OHKO to who ever was blinded.

[Djego27]

On 14.5.2017 at 0:00 AM, Cornelius.EE said:

I completely agree, and thank you for the elaboration. I mostly intended to show that Accelerant is still powerful even with a build with very modest power strength.

I really hope that DE is keeping Accelerant independent of LoS on purpose. Despite the wording in my original post (which I will presently go back to and edit), I do not think a LoS nerf would be good for Ember. Basically, I have some anxiety that it might be hit with the nerf bat without a good reason and wanted to provide a mechanic that might mitigate a possible LoS nerf.

Well in my opinion it was mostly balanced against mprime and roar what where the first universal damage buffs where it is fairly comparable while the scaling is not as linear as the other abilities, given that we can influence the amount of heat damage on a weapon much better then the total amount of damage. 

Technically the only drawback of LoS would be that you have to cast it more for targets that where in range but not in line of sight at higher levels. My biggest problem with that would simply be how LoS works(or unfortunately often not) in Warframe. Knee high cover can put units out of line of sight when they are clearly visible or being slightly behind a corner while already shooting your will also not count for LoS, given that LoS in the game is most likely calculated by a point in the centre of the unit and as long as this has any thing between you and the unit, it does not count for LoS.

While it can be used to stun lock a certain area, it is not as reliable at that like a blind, given that certain animation can override the quick CC(like the ground slam of heavy units, throwing a flame bomb etc, same as they can override the fire CC) since they are a combined effect of quick CC(that can be overwritten by a animation as well) directly followed up the blind effect(what can not be overwritten). Also it is fairly energy inefficient to use accelerant every 3s. While this could be solved with a trinity, at this point you could be just as well use mag, that can put up a magnetize between crush(what is also not 100% reliable, given that it sometimes for some reason does not work on targets under lag, both before and after the change that did give the skill 3 ticks to lessen the issue) or banshee that allows for more consistent CC and the better damage buff, at the expense of being incredible boring to watch(given that this is mostly the game play people expecting you to do when you bring a banshee to a high level mission).

What was done back in the day in sorti interception, excavation or the LOR raid was basically you had a max range and duration mirage casting prism every 10-15s and you simply ignored all the enemy units, given that they could not do a thing. They never left the blind state and since there where not killed they also did not respawn. In comparison for the phoenix interception(L150 melee only interception) I came up with frost(for the ice wave impedance and a globe for the start of the round, given that you did die in a single hit), Loki(for the disarm), Nyx for the chaos and a slow Nova(for stackable over 90% slow in combination with Ice wave impedance) what I used to do the event for myself and all my clan mates that wanted the final mission done(people from recruitment after the mission stated they could have never imagined that it could be that easy). Theoretically you could have archived that all easier with just a single frame and prism(I just did not think of that back then). Aoe blind without LoS was just ridiculous powerful, even compared to what pure CC frames like Nyx or Frost for the most part can do. Keep in mind this was at a time before the frost rework(what would have made it trivial for frost to solo), before body count and blood rush, before shadow step or frames like Inaros or Nidius, where a L150 mission required good coordination with the tools we had back then(I actually did the first 2 steps with my melee Ember) while devs shamelessly published any hour or so the number of people that managed it(it was in the 300+ of the hole game when I finished it, after taking some sleep and thinking about a better option than 3 Excalibur and 1 Trinity what was the meta of how we did that back then and I think it did not extend 2k or so players in the end to get a fancy sigil, that I honestly never use ).

Edited May 14, 2017 by Djego27

[Justice_Ember]

On 2017-5-11 at 8:07 PM, Hellmaker2004 said:

Her current kit is overpriced for what it does and can only really excel either as a low level rush frame or as a high level Crowd control frame, and to be honest as a crowd control frame there are so many other who can perform that role better. And her damage late game only works if you play with Accelerate and weapons.

So why am i bringing all this nonsense up? well i think that Ember deserves to be in a better place! Even tough i barely play her.

While I do appreaciate someone for wanting to make Ember stronger I don't believe you've understood Ember yet (that's not meant as an insult tho, there's plenty frames I don't get and therefore barely play). As such your ideas to improve her fall on the side of what you want her to be instead of improving her for all of us that use her constantly.

On 2017-5-13 at 6:15 AM, Djego27 said:

I would prefer something more active that is based on head shots and restore a small amount of hp(like 2-4 per head shot) or gives like 1% power strength for 10s(stackable till like 15-20%) because I think that mechanics like arcane rage and victory are great since they give you something you can do actively as a player to improve your damage output or survivability.

Remember we are getting a "head-shoter" frame soon™. I stand behind a casting stacker for physical buff as passive as mentioned previously.

On 2017-5-13 at 6:15 AM, Djego27 said:

If I could change something, I would add 5-10% base status chance(scalable with power strength) to all weapons while accelerant is in effect

As for fire blast, it should have the hole ring on fire with the WoF status chance to inflict a fire proc. This would make it much better when it comes to defend stuff against melee units and would allow to slow enemy units down at specific points, similar as frost can, what is very useful.

As for WoF I agree that it should be reduced in damage for lower levels while buffed in status chance a bit to be less depended on high power to work as reliable CC tool at higher levels.

+1 on all three counts

On 2017-5-14 at 5:46 AM, Ordosan said:

dont forget. accelerant also dosnt open finishers or stealth damage bonuses when stunned and require fire dmg for the bonus dmg. I think that in itself is its "limiting factor" while blind was a recastable OHKO to who ever was blinded.

Accelerant can't be nerfed for these very reasons, when compared against any other CC it looks weaker, yet to a player that mods weapons around it is extremely useful.

[Hellmaker2004]

7 hours ago, zzzNitro said:

While I do appreaciate someone for wanting to make Ember stronger I don't believe you've understood Ember yet (that's not meant as an insult tho, there's plenty frames I don't get and therefore barely play). As such your ideas to improve her fall on the side of what you want her to be instead of improving her for all of us that use her constantly.

No worries i am not taking it as a insult, i can with confident say that i am not now nor when i did play her was i a good Ember player. I can also say that i am not a dedicated Ember player, and all i would want to offer are ideas on how to improve her, that being said i may not be the best spokesman for her play style nor do i advocate that i am. I only want her to be more than she currently is.

And i will admit that i only ever use her for one reasons. That is to clear low level stuff between the level around the 1 - 40 area. Now i always play solo for those stuff since i do not want to ruin other peoples experience by burning the whole map before anyone else reaches stuff.

 

But she does seem lackluster, her damage is so sub-par compared to all other frames i have spent some time with, part of that is clearly me modding her poorly but i can't get her even close to where i can bring for example Mesa. Now one excuse is clearly mobility, while Mesa is very immobile and Ember is not but it feels like the trade off is simply not there.

Now damage is not the only thing she offer, and i would dare to say that Ember offer one other thing, that would be better to compare and that is crowd control. But even there she seem lackluster compared to most other options and i would even say that if it were not for the fact that Accelerant ignore line of sight( i assume it still does or have they changed this?) she would not excel in any spot.

 

Almost everything in her kit except Accelerant is over costed for what it does. Now i know there is a issue with WoF builds and i can understand that concern, someone posted earlier that it could as a example have reduced damage the further foes are, and that would be a good idea since it would still have the same chance to apply heat status to crowd control foes(once again i assume the heat status chance is not effected by distance in his example).

 

Spoiler

 

Fireball

Offers single target damage with at 400 base, that also has a guaranteed heat proc dealing and additional 350% damage over 6 seconds (7 tick 50% each).

This seems fine for 25 base energy. Add to the fact that it also deal 150 base area damage in a  5 meter radius and counts as a single handed action it really starts to shine.

 

The problem i see with it is the random 50% chance on secondary targets to only get heat status. Although i agree it should not have a 100% chance since perhaps a 5 meter crowd control skill for only 25 base energy would be insane. I do however think a compromise could be meet here. The fire patch would offer a slight increase in damage to foes who lingered in it with some higher odds of status since it keeps ticking. This would reward good placements, but it would also synergies with her current passive since it could allow her to create short temporary fire patches where she can "ignite" herself. It would also offers a excellent way to make the augment Fireball Frenzy more reliable since currently i dare to say the effort of both slotting the augment and mastering casting fireball on moving allies is not worth the reward.

The head shot aspect was only a idea on how to reward good aiming and the idea would not be that head shot is the "balanced" radius of the patch. This is also why all other aspect of the patch is unmodified by performing a skill shot, since the same effect could be achieved by simply casting fireball more.

 

Accelerant

Need no explanation, this skill is perfect and so is the augment.

 

Fire Blast

Is the big one here, and i simply do not know what the main purpose of this is. It deals very poor damage. It has a very high base cost of 75 Energy. The guaranteed status one can get overlaps with Accelerant, the fire ring is very inconsistent sometimes foes are terrified of the ring and sometimes they do not care at all and the augment Fire Fright does not seem to be worth the mod slot when you can pretty much cast three accelerant for a total of up to 18 seconds of stun for the same cost and with even more added benefit such as the multipliers and a free mod slot.

 

World On Fire

Is a decent damage and crowd control skill, i do not think this may need to be changed much. Nor does the augment

 

 

[Djego27]

Well Volt for pure ability damage is lacklustre, however if you use volt shield with a crit weapon or speed with a strong melee he can blow through nearly everything without much effort.

Saryn with a Sobek and the Acid Shell augment will beat any WoF Ember in any Exterminate full stop, while it works quite well even at L100. She works kind of like Ember played like this, press a button, just shoot and everything will die ridiculous quick, in case on Saryn even with a 15m AOE that is if you have punch through, dots up and viral going is more or less guaranteed lethal to everything it hits even at L100, where it works like kind of uncanny version of the mprime explosion on death, creating ridiculous domino effects.

Valkyr, do you need Hysteria at L100+? No you can use some fancy status mechanics and prolonged paralysis to kill nearly every level, armor or not next to instant with specific build status weapons.

Mag with a Mara Detron is incredible strong, given that is the only use case where people actually use decent detron builds it is no big surprise(ones that are build for status), same is true for Vauban and Ember(where it deals uncanny damage as well) where is is incredible good to disable auras at high levels, while the radiation damage does pull it's weight vs the brakk at L100+ in the void or against grenier.

Inaros/Chroma, her abilities in itself deal nearly no damage just by them self, but incredible high damage with the use of weapons, based on the bonuses her abilities give.

Ember works with nearly every crit weapon well if you go for head shots(because you just apply crit and head shot multipliers to the modded fire damage after you scaled it up with accelerat).

Status on Ember is even more interesting, given that accelerate scales different on status weapons and Ember different to many other frames actually has the ability to make weapons that are only considered good utility actually very good for damage at the same time, while providing armor ignore or the ability to bypass aura protection what are both incredible powerful things to have at high levels, while also putting everything you shoot into perma CC at the same time.

Ember is not that different then other frames when it comes to being mostly a weapon based frame, the main difference is that the frame is just not perceived as this because people only relay on WoF and accelerant is not a general all purpose damage buff, it requires a different style of weapon modding then you use on other frames and does also not scale on every weapon the same.