The Second Stream Podcast 14 - Harrow Abilities, New Augments, and more! ft. [DE]Pablo

[[DE]Taylor]

[DE]Pablo was back again for episode 14 of the Second Stream Podcast to give you an inside scoop on what was revealed in Devstream 92! 

Get more details on Harrow’s abilities, the benefits of the new headshot-focused scoped pistol, the next batch of Augments, coming QOL changes and more by listening in. Since this episode was lacking in community voices, we’d love to hear your thoughts on everything discussed in this podcast using the comment section and poll! 

Guests:

@[DE]Pablo - twitter.com/PabloPoon

Spoiler

Here is a full rundown of Harrow’s abilities from the Devstream 92 Overview:

Passive: Double Overshield Capacity

Ability 1: Creates a ray that chains enemies, leaving them open for headshots, which synergizes with his kit. You obtain shields for each enemy hit.

Ability 2: Casting sacrifices your shields, gaining a buff that lasts longer the more shields are sacrificed, in exchange for reload and fire rate buffs. While it’s active, you will also heal allies in affinity range for a percentage of damage dealt.

Ability 3: Casting spawns a spectral thurible, which grants you energy for every headshot you get within its range. The longer you hold 3 down, the more energy the ability costs but the more energy you’ll make back per headshot kill.

Ability 4: Casting makes you invulnerable for a short duration. Once the invulnerability ends, you will gain additional critical chance on headshots. The more damage prevented in the first phase the larger the damage bonus will be.

[MortalMercenary]

I am excited to see Nidus Augments over the listed Frames potential getting augments.

[[DE]Taylor]

Just now, MortalMercenary said:

I am excited to see Nidus Augments over the listed Frames potential getting augments.

Are you secretly @[DE]Rebecca?

[PsiWarp]

Praise Pablo!

Edit: Now that I have listened to the stream, I am all the more excited for Harrow. This marksman will be a great boon to his team!

However, there was talk about his #3 power over at the megathread, how it may be a bit slow and clunky to get energy back. From what I have dissected from Devstream 92, here's how I think it works:

• Hold 3 to drain energy per second to charge up the spectral thurible. While charging it appears that Harrow cannot move or use weapons.
• Release 3 to deploy the spectral thurible. It has its own range where players need to stand in to benefit.
• Headshot kills (not just headshotting) made inside thurible range will grant energy to Harrow, presumably the same goes for allied players.

I have no problem with straightforward powers that reliably grant their benefits, but considering that all of Harrow's other abilities are multi-functional, it would be great if Thuribles had some type of different effect (such as restoring shields per second, buffs, soft CC or status effects) for players or enemies inside their incense auras.

Edited May 16, 2017 by PsiWarp

[MortalMercenary]

Just now, [DE]Taylor said:

Are you secretly @[DE]Rebecca?

I wish, Space mom is awesome!

[MortalMercenary]

Just now, PsiWarp said:

Praise Pablo!

Pablo Bless

[Lele.]

I was hoping to find in Harrow a viable alternative to Trinity but it is too machinious to be considered a real support. I was excited until I saw him in the game. I'd like to get a frame that has support and crowd control capabilities.

[(XBOX)EternalDrk Mako]

wonder if any of the augments will be dc suggested 

[IceColdHawk]

I was kinda surprised to see that excal, mag and volt still have only 3 augments. Chose mag though simply because most builds focus around magnetize and getting an augment to enhance it even further is surely appreciated. Kind of an unfair question though considering we don't even know what the augments will do.

Also it seems that there sneaked another "bug" in this poll ^{(probably to skew the results)}

Question 5, 4th answer: "I don't them benefitting me". Must be "I don't see them benefitting me" i guess.

Np for the catch.

Edited May 16, 2017 by IceColdHawk

[45neo]

For me personally I am excited for Harrow in some ways though his 2nd seems a bit bland, getting rid of all shields for fire rate may be useful in some ways but in other ways it also just feels like it's gonna be underwhelming. With his 3rd I felt like it had potential to make him at least a decent alternative for Trinity. However since it is head shot kills and not just head shots to gain energy it will heavily effect his ability to be used when enemies begin to resist 1 shot head shot kills.

[(PSN)Quo_Tee]

Meanwhile Status chance still doesn't do anything special over 100% whereas Crit is getting more love :(

[Xekrin]

28 minutes ago, [DE]Taylor said:

Ability 2: Casting sacrifices your shields, gaining a buff that lasts longer the more shields are sacrificed, in exchange for reload and fire rate buffs.

I feel like a frame that benefits quite strongly from strong, carefully aimed headshots would get less use out of a fire rate buff than something that could have buffed or somehow assisted in performing said headshots.  Overall, more damage = good and healing is great for the whole team of course, but synergy with rest of kit?  Doesn't sound like it.

Reload speed is nice but eh... its like Chroma's lame attempt at making toxin build useful all over again? Maybe?

[RoninJed]

Hmm the results to the first question don't look good. In fact I'm starting to think the whole sniper frame theme was a bad idea...or at least badly implemented. Will make sure to give some feedback once I get my hands on him.

[Archeyef]

Voted "Other" on new warframe excitement. I am eager to try out his kit, before I make any kind of solid judgement on him. But I have a prediction: He will not be fun at all in group play. Group play is very fast paced, and intentional headshots take time. By the time you've cast 1 and are setting up your first headshot, that enemy and every other enemy for 5 miles is already dead. Unless Harrow is designed specifically as a solo-frame, I'm very worried that this idea will completely flop. I hope I turn out to be wrong.

I wouldn't call any of Harrow's abilities "enticing," for reasons stated above. But the one that I foresee being the most useful is his 1, purely for the crowd control. But as I recall it will be a straight line cast, which would mean it's probably outclassed by other CC abilities.

I am most excited for Nidus augments. I want to see what we give a frame that has crowd control, healing, tanking, and damage.

New enemies means new mechanics pretty please...?

Gonna wait on the scoped secondary headshot benefits before I form an opinion.

[SamuraiPizza]

Harrow:

I'm SOMEWHAT excited for Harrow, but I worry that

1) his shield sacrifice gives buffs that appear to not be very significant in the grand scheme of things, I mean fire rate and reload speed buffs are very very meh if you think about it. If I missed something, my apologies. If the buffs are large buffs to things like base damage or critical chance/damage, then I'd be on board.

 

2) his energy regain mechanic has far too long a cast time and appears to offer far too little in return, and other avenues of energy regain will likely need to be relied upon. I'd very much like to see not only a cohesive kit (which you guys seem to be on very much the right track for), but also a self sufficient and effective one. 

 

3) As @Archeyef above pointed out, the pace at which Warframe flows is FAR tooo quick for a frame that is rewarded for being patient and lining up headshots. 

Edited May 16, 2017 by Legion216

[Navarc]

25 minutes ago, Legion216 said:

I'm SOMEWHAT excited for Harrow, but I worry that

 

1) his shield sacrifice gives buffs that appear to not be very significant in the grand scheme of things, I mean fire rate and reload speed buffs are very very meh if you think about it. If I missed something, my apologies. If the buffs are large buffs to things like base damage or critical chance/damage, then I'd be on board.

 

2) his energy regain mechanic has far too long a cast time and appears to offer far too little in return, and other avenues of energy regain will likely need to be relied upon. I'd very much like to see not only a cohesive kit (which you guys seem to be on very much the right track for), but also a self sufficient and effective one. 

I'm predicting that by the time you're done with the animation your allies have wiped out the entire room and all rooms around it with their simulors & tonkors, leaving you nothing to get energy back from.

[Automatix0042]

3.) I like intresting ability changing augments for Waframes, but in the last year we haven't seen many augments at all, so im most excited for more augments for our newest or even not so new 'frames (e.g. ivara, wukong, nezha, titania). Btw. I looked into the conlave augments ('frames and weapons) and most of them could be a very solid PvE mod, too - some of them might of course need adjustments for PvE.

5.) Personally I like the concept of Harrow very much. BUT, I see a problem in his overall headshot mechanic not fitting the overall fast flow/gamplay of Warframe. You have to stop and aim properly to get consistent headshots on an enemy. A solution might be to give players already benefits from hitting enemys, but larger ones from achieving a headshot, and even larger for headshot kills. Otherwise I see his third ability being mostly unused except for survival, defense or interception.

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

Mesa Peacemaker augment please! Somthing that lets her, move, roll, dodge or parry. 

[Othergrunty]

1. Now that Harrow’s (WIP) abilities have been revealed, how excited are you for his release?

Not much. Until i actualy have finished crafting him and testing him myself, i don't want to form an opinion about him just yet.

Though after 32 Warframes it becomes kind of difficult for me to really get excited for new frames. I guess it's because the older frames had more time to leave an impression on me, so i might passively use them as benchmark constantly, which makes Harrow look less impressive.

I think new players are more important for this question.

 

2. What part of Harrow’s (WIP) kit is the most enticing to you?

Because of my statement above. No opinion.

 

3. What Warframe’s Augment are you excited most for next?

No opinion.

 

4. With the expansion of the Grineer faction, what new features are you looking for in your foes?

For new units i would say unique mechanics, at least if they are not just annoying.

However this reminds me to a visual inbalance between the 3 major factions i noticed.

While all factions have been updated with new unique enemy types, there is still a noticable difference in how distinct the Grineer are with their base units, compared to the Infested and Corpus. The Grineer have by now at least 3 distinct visual variations of their base units (regular, Arid and Frontier), in addition to the Drekhar, Kuva and Nightwatch variants, which are less varid in their models, but still quite distinct in their coloring.

That's SIX! distinct versions of their base units.

Meanwhile regardless of sector you encounter the same ONE variant of Corpus or Infested base enemies and those are allready pretty bare bone in their model variants.

For the Corpus your major enemies are Crewmen with different colored uniforms, different colored Moa and different colored Ospreys. That's 3 models which look the same across their versions. There is no visual distinction between these base units except for coloring and in case of Sapping and Shield Ospreys these colors even overlap so much that it negatively affects gameplay. Elite Crewmen recently even lost their blue uniforms and now look identical to Crewmen.

Of course base Grineer variants also mostly use the same model of Lancer, Ballista, Butcher and Bombard, but these can at least get different looking helmets and the patterns on their armor highlight different colors a lot more.

A different helmet on the Corpus Crewmen variants, different guns on the Moas and maybe some devices strapped to the lower "forks" of the Ospreys (to show where their powers come from) might allready do wonders for making the Corpus enemies look more distinct among each other.

However where the lack of variants really hurts is for the Infested.

For them the major enemies are identical infested Corpus Crewmen, identical infested Corpus Crewmen missing their lower bodies and identical infested Grineer Lancers. I'm leaving the Ancients out because they somewhat have an excuse for looking identical. But this is still a stark contrast to what the Infested are actualy meant to be. A horde of chaotic, all consuming and twisting abominations.

Of all factions the Infested should have the most visual difference among their base units, because they would logicaly twist everyone in a different way and use every faction as source for their units. Not to forget that it makes little sense that we encounter infested Grineer on a strictly Corpus tilset, Infested Corpus on a strict Grineer tilset or both in locations where they shouldn't have been for ages.

The infested should have at least 3 unique variants of their base units (with identical shapes of course for the sake of players), which means things like a Corpus based Charger for attacked Corpus tilsets, Grineer based Crawlers, Runners, Exploding Runners and Leapers for attacks on Grineer tilsets and a fleshy non-faction variant in style of Ancients for locations where no new Corpus or Grineer should have been for quite some time (Eris).

 

5. What is your opinion on the proposed headshot benefits from the coming scoped secondary weapon?

Headshots take time. Time in which your fellow players can clean out entire rooms or in which you might think "i could have done this faster". Not to forget time in which an enemy might hammer you with bullets or chew on your ankles.

I'm unsure it will have any lasting benefit to players that will make it worth it. Just like with snipers.

 

Edited May 16, 2017 by Othergrunty

[MrMitchel]

I've seen suggestions of allowing harrow to move while hes channeling his thurible, which I personally like the sound of. Is this something you would consider implementing?

[MartianJellyfish]

Now that Harrow’s (WIP) abilities have been revealed, how excited are you for his release? / What part of Harrow’s (WIP) kit is the most enticing to you?

I'm... not very excited, I must say. I love the frame's looks and general theme, but I don't see myself using him for anything serious. His passive seems cool (I like overshields ok) and might add some extra survivability in some scenarios, however constant slash/toxin procs might make that meaningless until we get shield-gating of some sort. His 1 and 2 are ok-ish. His 3 concerns me. The casting animation feels dreadfully long, plus the thurible is static once it's cast - I can't see that being useful outside Defence where you might actually stay in place long enough to benefit from the ability. Might need to try it out but I believe it'd be a lot better if it worked like an aura, with the spectral thurible following him around for its duration. His 4 is... confusing? I have no idea what it's supposed to be? You cast it, you're invulnerable, then you get a crit bonus on headshots (which couldn't really be a more niche buff). Sounds uncreative and hardly feels like an ultimate when compared to other Warframes. Again I'll have to try it out but I don't see much sense on it thus far.

With the expansion of the Grineer faction, what new features are you looking for in your foes?

None? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ We already have enough Grineer content as is, can we have other factions expansion now?

If you mean new features in general, though, no more cheese? I'm personally horrified with the latest new Grineer unit shown, not because he has a face not even a mother can love, but because I'm afraid he'll just be another toxin-proccin' machine judging from the 'chemical strike' description. Paranoia, maybe?

What is your opinion on the proposed headshot benefits from the coming scoped secondary weapon?

Again the same concern I have about Harrow. I'm one of those players who hardly considers headshots in a (supposedly) fast-paced horde game like Warframe. There aren't enough foes I actually have to sit back and calculate where I aim, and even if there were, I'd have to rely on crowd control most of the time to get headshots because they're often running around. Main reason Banshee is one of my favourite frames is because Sonar actually adds large crit spots on enemies, much easier to hit than a head (which, when you consider some models such as Infested, gets rather complicated...) In the end it seems like an attempt to slow down gameplay if you solo, which is not my preferred playstyle. Am I the majority? Am I the minority? I don't know, but again I don't believe I'll be seeing benefit from it too often.

Just my 2p.

[ArcusVeles]

Y'all just had to mention Vacuum again, just to say your stance is unchanged.  Thanks for that.  :|

[XaelathRavenstorm]

about the orange crits and the triple crit(will be red)

 

it's not just harrow that can go triple crits

arcane avenger and bloodrush has synergy that can go triple crits

a strong disposition weapon with a perfect riven like synapse etc. + avenger can go triple crits as well

Edited May 17, 2017 by XaelathRavenstorm

[UvBenServed]

1. I expected nothing before seeing him in action, and now I seem to be in the minority in thinking he looks pretty neat. Of course we'll have to wait and see how useful he'll actually end up being in a team setting, but I'm looking forward to trying him out. The only complaint I have is that his third ability seems...not great. I'm happy to have another warframe that can supply energy. But the charge time, lack of mobility, headshot kill requirement, and limited range make me doubt it's usefulness. IMO all of Harrow's abilities should be useful on their own, and the headshots should be the icing on the cake for any players skilled/patient enough to pull them off.

2. Second ability. I like the risk reward mechanic. Reminds me of Inaros' Scarab Swarm. And like Inaros, it seems easy enough to gain back what you sacrificed.

3. Can't really get excited about an augment if I don't know what it does. Even then, some augments are more/less useful in practice than they first appear.

4. Grineer units can feel a bit samey at times, so new mechanics should freshen things up a bit. As long as said mechanics are more challenging than obnoxious.

5. One bullet huh? I'll probably be terrible with it, but it definitely sound interesting. Gonna have to color it gold.

[Darkvramp]

Harrow is disappointing, you build him up as a priest so we think oh a support that might give us pause in selecting trinity as a healer, but nooooo. He is a gunslinger and building him up to be something entirely different than our expectations of what a priest is from any other game is just... disappointing. We already have a gunslinger, her name is mesa, and she is in a really good place, and so is trinity if you want to make a support, you are going to need to try harder DE. I'm fine with his kit, but what i was expecting out of harrow was a support, an alternative to trinity, but we got another gunslinger again. We need another support as Oberon is still laughably poor and Equinox is better at damage than healing support.

Snipers and weapons of the like would be instantly made nonviable with the introduction of the new weapon. Snipers in game suck at this moment. Why do they have a timer on the combo? It doesn't reward you to keep up the combo counter because of the short duration of said combo counter, and using a mod slot for harconar scope is not worth it.