Zephyr's Dive Bomb's damage and range should scale better with the height from which it is cast.

[Kthulhu911]

Zephyr is known as one of the less used frames in the game, which is a shame since there is a lot of untapped potential in her abilities.

One such ability is Dive Bomb. As it stands, the ability is completely useless when compared to every other reputable knockdown/damage source in the entire game.

This can be fixed quite easily, simply by making the damage and range increase significantly with the height from which it is cast (instead of the current condition).

My suggestion is as follows:

Let the height be x (in units of 3 meters).

Unmodded range (in meters) - x

Unmodded damage - 50*(x^2)

These stats would give it validity in the meta without being completely overpowered; think what happens if you manage to climb to the height of 30 meters (rather high in warframe), you'll do 5,000 damage in a range of 10 meters, which is not bad at all but still not overpowered. Of course, you could get even more damage if you went higher, but going higher would be difficult for new players without the aid of zenurik.

 

Let me know what you think of this suggestion, and help get this to DE's attention!

Edited July 17, 2017 by Kthulhu911
Small change.

[Birdframe_Prime]

19 minutes ago, Kthulhu911 said:

These stats would give it validity in the meta without being completely overpowered

Well... Actually, that's a little underwhelming, really... Simply multiplying it directly for every 3 meters... It might add some base numbers, but that's kind of it. There's lots more problems than just the numbers wrong Dive Bomb.

Let's do some maths with the current neutral strength build;

15m with current method of (0.2 x Height in Meters x Damage) which would be 750. Range of 7m.

15m with yours would be ((Height in Meters / 3) x Damage) or (5 x Damage) which would be 1250 damage. Range of 5m (I'm guessing you meant Unmodded base range + x = range, so that might be 12m... but you've not made that one quite clear.)

So... you've added 500 damage. And 5m of range. Which caps out really, really fast anyway. You're really just delaying the inevitable with this one.

Try this:

Spoiler

On the ground Dive Bomb unleashes a radial burst of air, knocking down all enemies in a small radius around her, while casting in the air Zephyr hurtles directly at the target area on the ground to cause an explosion of air on impact. On the ground the ability does minimal damage, but in the air damage is affected by melee mods, and hits add to the melee counter, range mods affect how far the aiming reticule can be aimed away from Zephyr and the impact radius of the knock down.

In practice this ability has the basic function of the old Dive Bomb slam in one tap, you know those times when you hop into the air and tap the ability for minimum damage, but get the area knock down? No? Okay, so maybe you're not one of those that uses it because it's rubbish. Any enemy currently performing an animation with weight, such as a ground smash, throwing a weapon, using a console on Interception, calling Hyekkas... all of those ignore the knock-down effect. This is the old rule that animations beat everything, so for Zephyr we do the same; the knock down is forced on all enemies, and interrupts their animations because it's an animation itself. No more having enemies hacking consoles on interception just ignoring you. Guaranteed knock down, instantly on tapping the button. Short radius, as it currently is, and very low damage. Why? Because this is a really, really good cast as a 25 Energy ability. You run straight in and knock down any immediate targets, it's a softer CC than Sonic Boom, but radial so you can accidentally overshoot a target by a little way and still get them.

I would address spam by pointing out that the knock down can't be re-applied until enemies are fully standing, and the on-ground ability is a two-handed cast with the same time to cast as the recovery on the aerial Dive, and even though it's a mobile cast, it interrupts your own actions, like reloading, melee, casting other abilities. Tie that with the low base range of Dive Bomb and the only spam-capable build is one that maximises range, therefore nerfing the damage of the Dive and of Tornado (the changes to Tornado might make it clear why this isn't so desirable).

In the air is clearly different, however, but has the same base function; you're knocking down a small radius. From the air, the damage scales with height and melee mods and it also has a range-modified ability to aim it further forwards in the direction you're looking. This means that you can jump in the air, move forwards with aim glide or bullet jump, and attack enemies that are in front of you.

Regardless of the damage, the ability is based on that radial knock down being entirely reliable. Base of good CC and if you're in the air, you can aim it to tactically strike with actual damage. Options are there.

Another option is height scaling based on weighting, so that the higher you go, the greater the damage multiplier scales, but still based on the current.

The equation would be a little more complicated, however it wouldn't need all that much.

Something like ((Height in Meters x 0.2) x 0.2 Height in Meters x Damage).

So at 10m you'd get 1000; 15m you'd get 2250 damage; 20m you'd get 4000; 25 you'd get 6250; and at 30 you'd get 9000. Notice how that's scaling higher and higher in proportion?

Think about that. Think about it happening if you combined both the melee mod scaling and the weighting functions too... that would be interesting kinds of damage. it would also allow Dive Bomb to incorporate elemental damage and the cast time or recovery improved by mods like Primed Fury... Would be fun to think about, no?

[Kthulhu911]

23 minutes ago, Thaylien said:

Well... Actually, that's a little underwhelming, really... Simply multiplying it directly for every 3 meters... It might add some base numbers, but that's kind of it. There's lots more problems than just the numbers wrong Dive Bomb.

Let's do some maths with the current neutral strength build;

15m with current method of (0.2 x Height in Meters x Damage) which would be 750. Range of 7m.

15m with yours would be ((Height in Meters / 3) x Damage) or (5 x Damage) which would be 1250 damage. Range of 5m (I'm guessing you meant Unmodded base range + x = range, so that might be 12m... but you've not made that one quite clear.)

So... you've added 500 damage. And 5m of range. Which caps out really, really fast anyway. You're really just delaying the inevitable with this one.

Try this:

  Hide contents

On the ground Dive Bomb unleashes a radial burst of air, knocking down all enemies in a small radius around her, while casting in the air Zephyr hurtles directly at the target area on the ground to cause an explosion of air on impact. On the ground the ability does minimal damage, but in the air damage is affected by melee mods, and hits add to the melee counter, range mods affect how far the aiming reticule can be aimed away from Zephyr and the impact radius of the knock down.

In practice this ability has the basic function of the old Dive Bomb slam in one tap, you know those times when you hop into the air and tap the ability for minimum damage, but get the area knock down? No? Okay, so maybe you're not one of those that uses it because it's rubbish. Any enemy currently performing an animation with weight, such as a ground smash, throwing a weapon, using a console on Interception, calling Hyekkas... all of those ignore the knock-down effect. This is the old rule that animations beat everything, so for Zephyr we do the same; the knock down is forced on all enemies, and interrupts their animations because it's an animation itself. No more having enemies hacking consoles on interception just ignoring you. Guaranteed knock down, instantly on tapping the button. Short radius, as it currently is, and very low damage. Why? Because this is a really, really good cast as a 25 Energy ability. You run straight in and knock down any immediate targets, it's a softer CC than Sonic Boom, but radial so you can accidentally overshoot a target by a little way and still get them.

I would address spam by pointing out that the knock down can't be re-applied until enemies are fully standing, and the on-ground ability is a two-handed cast with the same time to cast as the recovery on the aerial Dive, and even though it's a mobile cast, it interrupts your own actions, like reloading, melee, casting other abilities. Tie that with the low base range of Dive Bomb and the only spam-capable build is one that maximises range, therefore nerfing the damage of the Dive and of Tornado (the changes to Tornado might make it clear why this isn't so desirable).

In the air is clearly different, however, but has the same base function; you're knocking down a small radius. From the air, the damage scales with height and melee mods and it also has a range-modified ability to aim it further forwards in the direction you're looking. This means that you can jump in the air, move forwards with aim glide or bullet jump, and attack enemies that are in front of you.

Regardless of the damage, the ability is based on that radial knock down being entirely reliable. Base of good CC and if you're in the air, you can aim it to tactically strike with actual damage. Options are there.

Another option is height scaling based on weighting, so that the higher you go, the greater the damage multiplier scales, but still based on the current.

The equation would be a little more complicated, however it wouldn't need all that much.

Something like ((Height in Meters x 0.2) x 0.2 Height in Meters x Damage).

So at 10m you'd get 1000; 15m you'd get 2250 damage; 20m you'd get 4000; 25 you'd get 6250; and at 30 you'd get 9000. Notice how that's scaling higher and higher in proportion?

Think about that. Think about it happening if you combined both the melee mod scaling and the weighting functions too... that would be interesting kinds of damage. it would also allow Dive Bomb to incorporate elemental damage and the cast time or recovery improved by mods like Primed Fury... Would be fun to think about, no?

I don't think you've read my post quite right. As I have suggested it, the height SQUARED is the multiplier for the base damage, which is precisely what you've said with your second suggestion.

And(, as a result,) you got the maths slightly wrong in your example:

h = 15m   -->   x = h/3 =5   -->   Dmg = 50*(x^2) = 50*(5^2) = 50*25 = 1,250

 

Now, to clarify, the range of the damage is simply (x*mods), for example, at 250% range, and 15m, you'd be affecting a total range of 37.5m (again, this is max range).

 

To further demonstrate why this works in the meta, let's take another, extreme example:

PR = 250%

PS = 239%

Height = 60m (extremely rare), x = 20

 

The damage dealt would be a massive 47,800; over the impressive range of 50 meters.

 

Actually reaching this height could require an entire minute of parkour, and using her first with this build is not really an option to achieve this height (low PD and PE). This makes it a rather meta move to pull, with very worthwhile effects.

 

Just in the rare chance that you still haven't yet understood, here are another few examples (at unmodded stats (the mods are applied last, after the initial calculation)):

h = 12m                                          - Dmg = 800        ; Range = 4m

h = 15m                                          - Dmg = 1,250     ; Range = 5m

h = 21m                                          - Dmg = 2,450     ; Range = 7m

h = 30m                                          - Dmg = 5,000     ; Range = 10m

h = 45m                                          - Dmg = 11,250   ; Range = 15m

h = 90m (basically impossible)       - Dmg = 45,000   ; Range = 30m

h = 300m (impossible)                    - Dmg = 500,000 ; Range = 100m

Edited July 17, 2017 by Kthulhu911

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, Kthulhu911 said:

I don't think you've read my post quite right. As I have suggested it, the height SQUARED is the multiplier for the base damage

Quite right, there, I didn't read that right. However my second example isn't squaring, by having a weighted multiplier it goes way higher. I mean, heck, at unmodded and getting to 45m mine would do 20,250 to your 11,250... But that's not really the point here ^^

The more important comment is that there's more wrong with Dive Bomb than the damage, and ramping it up isn't really going to do the job on its own.

Even range won't really do things until the ability is reliable enough as a CC to actually count. Which I say specifically because no damage lasts forever, and CC does.

On the other side, if it's entirely reliable as a short range CC, then the damage can't ramp up too high overall, so... leaves us in an interesting spot. I like the idea of getting to a good damage for effort invested, but that's about as far as it goes.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

Math nerds. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

Math nerds. 

Gaming nerd!

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

Zephyr needs a new 1 & 2... 

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

2 hours ago, (PS4)big_eviljak said:

Zephyr needs a new 1 & 2... 

And 4

[Birdframe_Prime]

13 hours ago, (PS4)big_eviljak said:

Zephyr needs a new 1 & 2... 

11 hours ago, (Xbox One)FCastle74 said:

And 4

Then go check out the reworks that myself and Renova put time into over the last... year... debating and coming up with new ideas to make the frames better.

Actually, 2 can be saved, as can 4 (with mechanical and AI fixes), but her 1 can actually, well, at least if you do it so that no actual mobility is lost, Tailwind can be absorbed into a passive so she still dashes, but it's more controllable and leaves her with a new ability slot (similar to the way Limbo was done, in theory at least).

There's a lot of time and effort gone into those, actually, six or seven threads of debate paved the way for the one I turned up with (called 'shock and awe' if you're curious), and we always try to ensure that the changes made are easily within DE's usual practices for changing up how frames work.