Banhee Tweaks and Brainstorming!

[Azamagon]

So, I had a bunch of ideas for Banshee. Some of them I'm more confident about, while some I'd like to brainstorm with you guys.

First, the ones I'm more sure of on how I'd like to improve them:

PASSIVE
* Silenced weapons: This part is kept, it's a cool passive.
* On additional passive (Call it: "Opportunist", or something like that?): If Banshee attacks enemies who are unaware of her, or if the enemy she attacks is incapacitated in any way (llike: Stunned, Knocked down, Ragdolled etc), she will deal 10% more total damage towards it (from any source of damage she deals).
The reason for adding this passive to her is because her other passive becomes 100% useless when enemies are alerted of her presence. Note that this is somewhat of a placeholder idea, but I still feel that it at least fits very well with her entire kit (which is all about pseudo-stealth and/or crowd control), and with her other passive.

SONIC BOOM
* Is now onehanded (Could possibly even become a scream-animation?)
* Is now freeaimed, rather than always being aimed straight forward
* In addition to the "boom", there will also be a sonic RAY. This ray has unlimited range, is hitscan, has high finisher damage and knocks down the target. It is aimed at your reticle with pinpoint accuracy (Think of it as innately giving her an Opticor-beam, but made of sound). This means she'll have a "sniper"-ability in her kit, fitting her sniper-esque style and synergizes really well with Sonar's weakspots.
* All enemy projectiles struck by the wave (including hitscan ones, if possible?) are deflected away from Banshee, with friendly fire enabled (and can no longer hurt Banshee or her allies!). While this is a bit niched, it could still have its interesting uses (like against Bombard missiles / Napalm fires and such), not to mention it is probably not impossible to program either (considering the wave has traveltime and all that).

SONAR
* Holdcasting makes it "pingcast". By pingcasted, I mean that every 3 or 4 seconds or so, Sonar is automatically cast (animationless, but still with full energycost). While pingcast is activated, you cannot cast Sonar regularly. Recasting it (a tapcast is enough) turns off the pingcasting.

Now, on to the stuff which I'm more unsure how I'd like to change them. First let's look at a more conservative approach to them though:

SILENCE
This ability has its uses, but also feels rather limitted at times. I feel it could do more. If one is to go with a conservative approach to it, I'd suggest these things:
* Casting any other of her abilities restuns all enemies who are inside the aura (Goes perfectly with Sonar!)
* Enemies deafened by this ability also get a X% accuracy debuff too (Indirect survivability buff for Banshee and her team)
* Recast Silence to end it early.

SOUNDQUAKE
Imo, the least fitting ability in her kit (the rest of her kit is more built for a mobile Sniper style, while Soundquake is a camper's ability). Nontheless, if the ability is meant to be kept, some changes could be made to make it feel a bit more interactive
* She can cast her other abilities while it's active. Sonic Boom could possibly get something extra to it too, like a massive rangeboost or something? (A bit forced synergy there, but I feel it would make a lot of sense)
* Primary fire during Soundquake = Banshee shoots a longrange linear wave of powerful noise/pressure, which deals decent (finisher?) damage and knocks enemies down (costs X energy per blast). It is shot in the direction she aims.
Eh... still not too interesting imo.

Now, if one is to go about messing more heavily with her kit (mainly Silence and Soundquake), her are my comments on why I'd change some abilities more heavily:
* Silence - While it is not the worst ability in her kit (it's actually a great ability when used right), I still feel that it feels a little... empty? A bit meager if you will. Even with my suggested ideas above, i still feel it's not a very "interesting" ability. I don't think replacing it ENTIRELY is the best approach, but modifying it to have more versatile / interesting effects is probably in order.
* Soundquake - It caters to cheese and/or camping, and is kind of "anti" the rest of her kit (which all work well while moving around). This is the ability I'd change first, if I could. While it's USEFUL, it's also very unfun. I do, however, realize that it's very liked by a whole bunch of people and is also used in Banshee Prime's video and all that, so I think it is very unlikely to get a complete replacement.

That said, here are some of my new ideas. They cater more to her Sniper- and Stealthstyles, and even towards the Ghostlike nature of her name...

GHOST SHROUD
(Instead of Soundquake, but could also be a sidegrade/upgrade to Silence)
When cast, it projects a dome around Banshee (it follows her around). Any enemy outside of the dome will not be able to see nor hear what happens inside the dome.
Enemies inside the dome could become deafened (thus possibly also being able to replace Silence, adding the autostun if wanted).

If Banshee crouches (be it stationary or moving) or slides while on the ground = The dome gets very small (good for personal hiding, sniperstyle), with like a 2 meter radius or so. This range should probably NOT be affected by Power Range.
If Banshee sprints / bulletjumping = The dome quickly grows bigger (good teamhiding and possibly CC too, if added), to like a 10 meter radius or so. THIS radius could possibly be affected by Power Range.
If Banshee stands/walks (not sprinting) or does any other action which is not any of the two above = Then dome's size is kept to what it was altered to previously.

That means you can alter its size based on your actions, which is nice for adapting to various situations.

Energycost could either be a flat amount , or be drainbased. (Either version, it could be toggled off by recasting it). I'd say: Make it have a flat cost if it replaces Silence, or a drain if it replaces Soundquake.

Main intention of this ability is to give her a stealth-esque ability, mainly with the intention of replacing Soundquake, to give her a more mobile-centered stealthy sniper-kit.
Funnily enough, it could also become "merged" with Silence (as already mentioned, if adding Silence's stun-CC to it), in which case it'd serve to give her more "stealth survivability", both in general and/or while Soundquaking.

HAUNT
(A directly upgraded / more versatile Silence, pretty much)
* Tapcasting = Causes Banshee to emit a haunting aura (does exactly the same as Silence, with the "conservative additions" as mentioned above added to it as well). Some graphical updates would be nice here though, to make it look more "ghostly". Recast = End it early.
* Holdcasting = Banshee leaves her physical body and out comes an energyversion of Banshee. You take control of the energyversion, while the physical body remains stationary.
The physical body left behind has heavily reduced aggro, but is still fully vulnerable.
The energy body is invulnerable (or at least extremely durable and/or evasive?), but all damage dealt by it is reduced by 75%.
Casting her abilities (except Soundquake) causes said ability to be cast from the energy body's position (but casting Soundquake toggles Soundquake on/off from the PHYSICAL body).
Other than that, it functions just like if played with a regular Warframe (uses ammo when firing guns, can pick up items, can do all movements like normal, etc)
Recast = End it early (She goes back to taking control of her physical body again. Wether her physical body is moved to the position of where the energy body was when it was ended or not, is up to DE. For the sake of anti-exploits, I think it's safer if the physical body IS moved to where the energybody was cancelled).

Either cast lasts 10/15/20/25 seconds (slight duration nerf for the tapcast). Flat 75 energycost (for either version).

The main inspiration of this ability was to give you something active to do while Soundquake is up and running (via the holdcasted Haunt). Also, since the energy body deals heavily reduced damage, it gives you a reason to cast Sonar even on weaker enemies (and since it is invulnerable, you can take your time to aim too). It would also be a good scouting tool, even more so when combined with Sonar due ot its minimap-detection.

---------------
So those were the ideas. While I honestly like those ideas of mine a lot, I have no idea wether you guys would like them or not, or if they are even good abilities to give to Banshee.
What do you think? Do they fit Banshee? If so, which one(s)? Or are the new abilities TOO different?

Eager to hear your thoughts!

EDIT:
Personal opinion towards my own ideas:
* Of Haunt and Ghost Shroud, I feel that Ghost Shroud is the more fun and fitting ability of the two (note that I'm biased here cause I like stealth-stuff :P). However, Haunt is probably the more likely ability of the two to get implemented (if at all, of course), since it only adds to her kit, rather than revamping anything.
* Haunt is more likely easier to implement and simply leads to a straight upgrade to Silence. Its added feature would synergize very well with her kit, especially Sonar and Soundquake (and Sonic Boom could help protect the physical body, if Soundquake is not active).
* Ghost Shroud is probably tougher to implement, but has the ability to either replace Silence (if Silence's CC is added to it, and then it would more likely have a flat cost) or replace Soundquake (without CC, but is then more likely implemented as a rather energydrain ability). Even if I generally dislike Soundquake myself, I still feel it would be more likely to replace Silence though. If replacing Silence, it'd probably be the most synergistic change (albeit leaves Banshee with an even cheesier setup, with Ghost Shroud+Soundquake both active), if it replaced Soundquake she'd have a very mobile toolkit, but with the niches of both Ghost Shroud and Silence being sort of aimed towards survivability, it would maybe make one another feel redundant? Further however, if it did replace Silence, that means that Soundquake could still also be replaced with something new (only question is; With WHAT?!)
* Thus, I still can't decide what ability to push for! Help me! :D

Edited May 22, 2017 by Azamagon

[Azamagon]

One simple little nudge back to the top.

Come on guys, you gotta have some opinions on these ideas?

[Buzkyl]

Pretty nice idea. Feedback incoming

 

1.Sonic Boom

• Onehanded skill-Yes
• Free aim-Yes
• Deflects Projectiles-YES

Overall i do greatly enjoy the Sonic boom change, however i do find the sonic ray skill abit unnecessary, possibly as an augment but shouldn't be made part of the base ability.

 

2. Sonar

The change seems more like an interesting side-grade of an augment to Resonance than a base change. I like the idea of pf relinquishing control of normal casting to have it be automated, however it seems more inline with an augment as the ability at it's core is pretty functional and okay.

3. Silence

On the conservative side, I love the idea of The accuracy debuff and recasting the skill early. However the ability to restun enemies within aura by castig a new skills makes it seems way to easy to stun lock large maps of players without effort.It would already be possible to stunlock enemies by recasting the aura already with this change, I wouldn't mind however if the accuracy debuff is amplified when banshee is enemies are afflicted or hit by banshee's other skills.  

4. Soundquake

Idea of casting skills while active is really interesting idea. Perhaps allowing Soundquake to strike sonar spots is a possible another interaction with her kit. However i do agree it is the least fitting skill in her kit, gameplay wise atleast.

[Azamagon]

On 2017-05-24 at 0:47 AM, Buzkyl said:

Pretty nice idea. Feedback incoming

 

1.Sonic Boom

• Onehanded skill-Yes
• Free aim-Yes
• Deflects Projectiles-YES

Overall i do greatly enjoy the Sonic boom change, however i do find the sonic ray skill abit unnecessary, possibly as an augment but shouldn't be made part of the base ability.

 

2. Sonar

The change seems more like an interesting side-grade of an augment to Resonance than a base change. I like the idea of pf relinquishing control of normal casting to have it be automated, however it seems more inline with an augment as the ability at it's core is pretty functional and okay.

3. Silence

On the conservative side, I love the idea of The accuracy debuff and recasting the skill early. However the ability to restun enemies within aura by castig a new skills makes it seems way to easy to stun lock large maps of players without effort.It would already be possible to stunlock enemies by recasting the aura already with this change, I wouldn't mind however if the accuracy debuff is amplified when banshee is enemies are afflicted or hit by banshee's other skills.  

4. Soundquake

Idea of casting skills while active is really interesting idea. Perhaps allowing Soundquake to strike sonar spots is a possible another interaction with her kit. However i do agree it is the least fitting skill in her kit, gameplay wise atleast.

1. Glad you like most of it :)
The reason I wanted the added sound ray for it, baseline, was because I think natural synergies should be innate to skills. And the ray and Sonar would fit so well it'd be a shame if it was only attainable via an augment.

2. Well, this bonus was in fact to make the augment feel more as a choice than as a near necessity.

3. If you find recasting the skill early fine, why is the "restun upon any ability cast" too strong? Cuz of Sonar / Sonic Boom? Note the Sonic Boom's wide range might actually toss enemies out of the aura, and Sonar is still 50 energy per cast. And if restunning seems so OP, then what about all other skills that do similar things (Avalanche, Miasma, even Radial Disarm can keep restunning enemies (albeit briefly). And Banshee has no survivability worth mentioning, in contrast to many of the other 'frames that can restrun frequently.

4. Sonar spot synergy (while forced) is not a bad one. But as you also say, I'd prefer a complete revamp of ths skill. With that in mind; What's your opinion of the 2 other suggested skills (whichever skill they could possibly replace)?

[Darken217]

You've really given those a lot of thought, it seems.

I would like the "ease-of-use" changes to Sonic Boom. It does already compare to other "pocket CC" abilities, i.e. Valkyr's Paralyze or Inaros' Desiccation, but considering Banshee's paper thin / assassin-like nature, it would be appreciated to be able to rely on the ability a bit more.

As for Sonar ... To be honest, I don't think Sonar needs to be touched at all. You could obviously argue about that,  but I'll adress that later (hopefully).

Having a recast option for Silence has probably one of the most requested changes to this frame and the caution of turning it into a 3 spam is valid for sure. However, her 4 (with or without augment) does that already.
A recastable Silence could eventually become more viable / possible when added along with diminishing returns, i.e. if an enemy has been effected by silence within the last 'x' second(s), the duration of the stun will be reduced by 'x'%. This could hurt high duration / low range builds, but I wouldn't go that far and make a final judgement. I wouldn't go as far as your concept of Haunt did, even though that really nailed the tone of the "Banshee" as "Death Fairy" theme (not sure if that was intentional or not, but it seemed fitting).

Soundquake. I 100% agree that this ability doesn't fit her and as I said above, it allows for basically any mission with a stationary objective to be turned into a cake-walk, even to the degree that parts of the playerbase do not even consider other Banshee builds "valid", but that's a different story.

Another aspect of Banshee's current state should be taken into consideration:
As of now, almost all builds for her include at least one augment, sometimes even two, for the drastic increase in quality the augments may offer on the one hand (see Sonar), but also because of the base abilitie's lack in such on the other (silence's inefficient CC and redundancy due to her passive as an example).

DE has mentioned before that they would like to prevent afk playstyles, but on the other hand we got Octavia's cloaking, not to mention the augment for SQ that even caters towards afk gameplay.
At the end of the day, there isn't much we can do about the situation as a whole. I like Banshee where she is right now, in fact she's one of my favorites, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't appreciate a few changes.

My suggestion for an alternative for SQ or an eventually reworked version of the ability would be as follows:
(note that all numbers are entirely theoretical and merely for visualization / getting a point across)

• A single cast ability, no hold / channel.
• The cast emits a radial or conical shockwave, dealing ~350 damage.
• Each enemy hit with the inital cast, will emit an "echo" of the shockwave, eventually chaining to / bouncing off of more enemies.
• Each echo will cost Banshee 5 energy (at base) and will run with ~80% of the previous' echo's performance.
• To prevent echos bouncing back and forth between few targets, either a time-lock could be put in place or a hard cap, so that a target can only "echo" up to so many times.
• Each echo can proc blast status, knocking enemies down.

The goal of this would be to maintain the damage/CC nature of the ability while not neccessarily locking Banshee into one position.

Edited May 25, 2017 by Darken217
ctrl+enter does not help...

[Buzkyl]

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

3. If you find recasting the skill early fine, why is the "restun upon any ability cast" too strong? Cuz of Sonar / Sonic Boom? Note the Sonic Boom's wide range might actually toss enemies out of the aura, and Sonar is still 50 energy per cast. And if restunning seems so OP, then what about all other skills that do similar things (Avalanche, Miasma, even Radial Disarm can keep restunning enemies (albeit briefly). And Banshee has no survivability worth mentioning, in contrast to many of the other 'frames that can restrun frequently.

4. Sonar spot synergy (while forced) is not a bad one. But as you also say, I'd prefer a complete revamp of ths skill. With that in mind; What's your opinion of the 2 other suggested skills (whichever skill they could possibly replace)?

Perma stunlocking skills are bad no matter which frame they are, CC is a great thing to have but enemies have to be able to fight back in some form, or there's  some downside to the power. Considering proposed Silence lowers enemy accuracy, combine the proposed Sonic Boom change provides banshee plenty ways to avoid damage in general, avoiding damage is also a form of damage mitigation. Example -Limbo is exception squishy however due to the rift mechanics and stasis he has plenty of survivability.

As to the proposed skills i'll go in order

 

Ghost Shroud

This would be a great replacement skill, however i would like if it replaced Soundquake or it merged into soundquake as adding it onto silence seems to overcrowded the ability. At it's core it appears to be AoE Team stealth centered around banshee, which for WF is pretty broken because of how invisibility works and AI can barely fight back from it. It's dynamic range seems abit overly complex, yes warframe is a mobile game but not everything is meant o be on the move, for a sniper-esque skill/frame the ability would be better as an AoE effect for a certain area as sniper typical lie in wait for their kill which in in theme with Banshee's stealth theme. The dome would be formed when she casts Soundquake however will persist when she releases the skill.

Haunt

This skill is pretty 'out there' it's not bad but imo just doesn't fit banshee, while banshee is a name of a ghost she isn't a ghostframe but a stealth/sniper frame. The skill seems better suited on another frame. Soundquake locking you in place is bad yes but i don't think that's the right way to address it.

TL;DR Ghost shroud> Haunt all day everyday. However Haunt should either be her new ultimate or merged into soundquake in some way. both are nice suggestions as skills nonetheless but i just prefer ghost shroud to haunt.

 

[Azamagon]

On 2017-05-25 at 11:03 PM, Darken217 said:

You've really given those a lot of thought, it seems.

I would like the "ease-of-use" changes to Sonic Boom. It does already compare to other "pocket CC" abilities, i.e. Valkyr's Paralyze or Inaros' Desiccation, but considering Banshee's paper thin / assassin-like nature, it would be appreciated to be able to rely on the ability a bit more.

As for Sonar ... To be honest, I don't think Sonar needs to be touched at all. You could obviously argue about that,  but I'll adress that later (hopefully).

Having a recast option for Silence has probably one of the most requested changes to this frame and the caution of turning it into a 3 spam is valid for sure. However, her 4 (with or without augment) does that already.
A recastable Silence could eventually become more viable / possible when added along with diminishing returns, i.e. if an enemy has been effected by silence within the last 'x' second(s), the duration of the stun will be reduced by 'x'%. This could hurt high duration / low range builds, but I wouldn't go that far and make a final judgement. I wouldn't go as far as your concept of Haunt did, even though that really nailed the tone of the "Banshee" as "Death Fairy" theme (not sure if that was intentional or not, but it seemed fitting).

Soundquake. I 100% agree that this ability doesn't fit her and as I said above, it allows for basically any mission with a stationary objective to be turned into a cake-walk, even to the degree that parts of the playerbase do not even consider other Banshee builds "valid", but that's a different story.

Another aspect of Banshee's current state should be taken into consideration:
As of now, almost all builds for her include at least one augment, sometimes even two, for the drastic increase in quality the augments may offer on the one hand (see Sonar), but also because of the base abilitie's lack in such on the other (silence's inefficient CC and redundancy due to her passive as an example).

DE has mentioned before that they would like to prevent afk playstyles, but on the other hand we got Octavia's cloaking, not to mention the augment for SQ that even caters towards afk gameplay.
At the end of the day, there isn't much we can do about the situation as a whole. I like Banshee where she is right now, in fact she's one of my favorites, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't appreciate a few changes.

My suggestion for an alternative for SQ or an eventually reworked version of the ability would be as follows:
(note that all numbers are entirely theoretical and merely for visualization / getting a point across)

• A single cast ability, no hold / channel.
• The cast emits a radial or conical shockwave, dealing ~350 damage.
• Each enemy hit with the inital cast, will emit an "echo" of the shockwave, eventually chaining to / bouncing off of more enemies.
• Each echo will cost Banshee 5 energy (at base) and will run with ~80% of the previous' echo's performance.
• To prevent echos bouncing back and forth between few targets, either a time-lock could be put in place or a hard cap, so that a target can only "echo" up to so many times.
• Each echo can proc blast status, knocking enemies down.

The goal of this would be to maintain the damage/CC nature of the ability while not neccessarily locking Banshee into one position.

Sonic Boom - Yup, that's the point.

Sonar - True. The main point here was to ease up the "necessity" of Resonance, in a way that fits its own name (Sonar cast in a radar-kind of way, you know?)

Silence - Exactly. Her 4 is already a stunlock, so revamping her 4 + making Silence recastable and/or restun on other ability casts doesn't sound like it's all too OP, imo, especially since she is so paperthin. And we can already stunlock like that with plenty of Warframes, so it's not even something that is new either. And as you noted, adding diminishing returns could be a way to balance it, for sure.
Yeah, the idea of Haunt was to really live up to her name (+ to make Soundquake more interactive via Haunt). But I agreed, Haunt is maybe a bit too "out there" for Banshee.

Soundquake - Fully agreed.

Augments - Yup. Guess why i had the pingcast-idea for Sonar?

Soundquake replacement - I like that one. Quite similar to Dota 2's Earthshaker's ulti, Echo Slam (although it only "echoes" once). I can totally see that replacing Soundquake (would even fit Soundquake's initial cast animation, which is awesome!) + Ghost Shroud being the upgrade for Silence. Mind if I add that ability to the OP? :)

On 2017-05-25 at 11:36 PM, Buzkyl said:

Perma stunlocking skills are bad no matter which frame they are, CC is a great thing to have but enemies have to be able to fight back in some form, or there's  some downside to the power. Considering proposed Silence lowers enemy accuracy, combine the proposed Sonic Boom change provides banshee plenty ways to avoid damage in general, avoiding damage is also a form of damage mitigation. Example -Limbo is exception squishy however due to the rift mechanics and stasis he has plenty of survivability.

As to the proposed skills i'll go in order

 

Ghost Shroud

This would be a great replacement skill, however i would like if it replaced Soundquake or it merged into soundquake as adding it onto silence seems to overcrowded the ability. At it's core it appears to be AoE Team stealth centered around banshee, which for WF is pretty broken because of how invisibility works and AI can barely fight back from it. It's dynamic range seems abit overly complex, yes warframe is a mobile game but not everything is meant o be on the move, for a sniper-esque skill/frame the ability would be better as an AoE effect for a certain area as sniper typical lie in wait for their kill which in in theme with Banshee's stealth theme. The dome would be formed when she casts Soundquake however will persist when she releases the skill.

Haunt

This skill is pretty 'out there' it's not bad but imo just doesn't fit banshee, while banshee is a name of a ghost she isn't a ghostframe but a stealth/sniper frame. The skill seems better suited on another frame. Soundquake locking you in place is bad yes but i don't think that's the right way to address it.

TL;DR Ghost shroud> Haunt all day everyday. However Haunt should either be her new ultimate or merged into soundquake in some way. both are nice suggestions as skills nonetheless but i just prefer ghost shroud to haunt.

 

Perma stunlocking - True. But considering the current state of the game (if DE wants to keep it with the everscaling enemies + spammy hordeshooting nature), I don't see it as a massive issue. Besides, if Banshee would like to continuously stunlock enemies, it'd require lots of energy and recasting. So, in that regard, I wouldn't find her version of permastunlock too OP. Especially with her paperthin nature.
Limbo, for example, can permastunlock enemies for as long as he wants (via Cataclysm + Stasis). He only has a TINY window (if played right) were he can go down. And I still don't consider him OP, because he still requires ability timing, effort and manual killing. Same would be the case for Banshee.

Ghost Shroud
Honestly this is the ability I like the most too. While invisibility is indeed a bit too powerful in WF, remember; this skill is not true invisibility, enemies enterring the dome can see everything that's inside the dome). But that's also exactly why I want it to be dynamic; If you handle it wrong, Banshee would still be a possibly frail target. If she is to be personally "camoflagued", she has to be non-rushing. And I honestly don't think it's that complex; You crouch - It's small. You sprint/bulletjump - It's big. Anything other movement and it remains what you last set it to.
And not giving it a mobile nature... well then it's just a weaker version of Ivara's cloak arrow. I understand you want to evoke the sniper-esque feel to it, but that's why I wanted that crouch/sprint thing as a new mechanic: If you want to be personally sneaky, you have to take it slow.
And I'd very much not like to merge it with Soundquake. That's far too much.

Haunt
Yeah, pretty much how I feel about it now too. It's a tad too "ghosty" compared to her current style. Also, it promotes keeping Soundquake in the kit, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid. I still think it's a cool ability, but yeah, probably not for Banshee (no matter how much it synergizes with the current kit).

 

So, thanks to you guys' feedback and ideas, this is what I think would be a good kit for her:
1) Sonic Boom
2) Sonar
3) Ghost Shroud (merging Silence's to it)
4) Not finallized, but @Darken217's idea, in some form, as her ultimate (Call it Echo Blast?) seems like a pretty nice Soundquake replacement alternative. It certainly has a more interesting aspect to it than SQ, and could inspire some pretty awesome augment ideas. Not to mention, it serves well as a nice panic button, probably better so than SQ.