Zephyr Tweak Ideas

[DarkRuler2500]

Zephyr

Her Passive "Lightweight" currently only decreases the falling speed which is pretty lackluster regarding the powerful passives of other frames such as Ember, Saryn and so on. I would propose a tiny change which seems weak a first too but will be strong in combination with Zephyrs active skills.

Upwind: Zephyr falls slower and has a higher mobility while being mid-air. It will also grant a small buff to all power stats of 15% when being mid-air (strength, range, efficiency, duration).

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1^st skill: Taking Flight

(new skill combining Tail Wind and Dive Bomb!)

 

Pressing [1] quickly will now drastically decrease Zephyrs mass and allows her to lift off more easy. It decreases gravity on her by 20/30/40/50 percent. Since gravity is reduced by 50% on max rank this will double the time Zephyr in mid-air effectively. Pressing [1] again quickly will turn off the skill. Pressing [1] longer will make Zephyr propel into the direction the Warframe is currently facing towards. This will knockdown all enemies on her way dealing slash damage and remaining active in her gravity reducted state afterwards even when using the skill from ground. Colliding with a surface such as a wall or the ground will deal additional explosion damage in the area and rag-dolling affected enemies while automatically deactivating the gravity reduction-skill. The damage is of the explosion is calculated form base damage times the duration of the propelled flight. (200/225/265/300 x 1.2/second ; 10 seconds maximum) The area of the explosion is at least 5 meters but will increase by 0.5 for each second the flight is propelled. (3/3.5/4/5 x 1/second ; 10 seconds maximum. Activating the quick-1-gravity reduction does not cost energy but will consume 3 energy/second as upkeep cost. The flight-dash will cost 25 energy.

Augment ‘Flight Vortex’

The ability augment of Dive Bomb ‚Divebomb Vortex‘ will affect this skill as well and as well be renamed to fit this skills new name. Hitting enemies while dashing forward with [1] will no longer knockdown enemies but will drag enemies along the flight. Colliding with a wall will then no longer deal an explosion but an implosion. Damage and range are calculated the same way as the base explosion. Range mods increase vortex implosion radius. Power strength will increase the implosion damage. Power Duration will have no effect.

Min-Max

Power Strength

Does affect: Explosion Base Damage, Contact Slash Damage

Does not affect: Gravity reduction percentage, Damage multiplier

Power Range

Does affect: Explosion Base Radius, Contact Radius, Vortex-Radius (Flight Vortex-augment)

Does not affect: Radius multiplier

Duration

Does affect: Affects over-time energy costs

Does not affect: Maximum per-second-multiplier stacks

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2^nd skill: Turbulence

This will pretty much be the same skill as of now but the fixed duration has been removed and will be replaced by a constant upkeep ability. All other effects remain in place. There is however a new skill when Turbulence is used in synergy with Taking Flight. While Turbulence is active Taking Flights’s slash radius and the explosion damage of Taking Flight is increased by 33%.

Augment: Jet Steam
The original effects remain in place. The movement speed is increased by 40% while Turbulence is active. For avoiding conflicts in synergy with Taking Flight this will cause Taking Flight damage scaling-up to be adapted as well by +40%. The extra projectile speed remains untouched.

Min-Max

Power Strength

Does affect: Speed Bonus of the Jet Steam Augment

Does not affect: Damage Bonus of the Taking Flight Explosion

Power Range

Does affect: Deflection radius

Does not affect: Bonus range percentage for Taking Flight

Duration

Does affect: Affects over-time energy costs

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3^rd skill: Tornado

Yes, you read right. The tornado becomes only the third and not the ultimate skill. This skill will become a little build-up type of skill. Instead of just spawning several Tornadoes directly this will just spawn one large tornado directly around of Zephyr. The damage will suck in enemy projectiles of enemies in the perimeter and increase its damage output by a percentage of the damage absorbed. This tornado will still absorb the element just like now as well. After a tornado has reached a value of +100% bonus damage it will then split into 2 tornadoes. Each of the child tornadoes damage is reset to the base damage but the element is kept. Those child-tornadoes will continue to absorb enemy fire. Players can shoot the tornadoes to actively force a split. There can only be a maximum of 8 active tornadoes. Each tornado can just take +200% bonus damage and +50% radius while on maximum destructiveness.

Tornado Outburst
This augment will be changed in its effect completely since spamming weak tornadoes without lifting enemies will not provide extra benefit. So I’d suggest that Tornadoes sucking in damage will occasionally force out elemental bursts in +100% of the tornadoes current radius. This outburst will cause a guaranteed status effect to all enemies affected.

Min-Max

Power Strength

Does affect: Affects the damage absorption and redistribution, affects base damage

Does not affect: Maximum damage bonus

Power Range

Does affect: Tornado radius, Burst Radius (Tornado Outburst-augment)

Does not affect: Bonus range percentage for Taking Flight

Duration

Does affect: Ability duration

4^th skill: Wind Infusion (Name not so sure tbh)

A complete new skill will fill in the gap left by combining the previous 1^st and 2^nd skill into one. This skill by a highly energy consuming skill. It will consume 50 energy on each activation and then grant one counter which is shown in the up right border left to the players health bar. You can accumulated up to 2/3/4/5 counters. For each active Wind Infusion counter Zephyr takes 5% less damage while mid-air. Casting one other skill besides Wind Edge will cause one counter to be consumed to increase the effect of the ability.

~ Taking Flight: Gravity is turned off completely for Zephyr resulting in permanent floating while Wind Edge is active. Dashing forward will now now deal slash procs at a much higher attack rate to all enemies in Zephyrs way. Hitting a solid target will now explode more viciously increasing the damage and deafening and stunning targets in a wider area than the original explosion.

~ Turbulence will now affect enemies within its area by constantly attacking it for weak damage but with a guaranteed effect of pushing them around. This will result in a constant crowd-control in melee range.

~ Tornado: Tornadoes will cause enemy projectiles to be sucked into them from a wider area than the regular tornado. This will increase the damage -over-time of the tornado to increase and as well adapting the elemental damage type. Allied players projectiles will not be sucked into but direct hits will still affect the damage increase of the tornadoes.

 

 

[lyry19]

That tornado part could be so epic :O

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

Didn't get the chance to respond to the entire thing but her 2&3 are way too op. Protect against everything.

[DarkRuler2500]

@(PS4)RenovaKunumaru

Turbulence has not changed a thing in this concept except the duration is channeled by now. It can be disrupted and you're affected in my area blasts as well.

Tornado has a fixed duration and only sucks in close passing shots. It is far from being overpowered since it needs time to build up but still the abilities' duration is still counting down in the meantime.

Towards your wording "Protect against everything!", there are plentyful of enemies who can break that defense. She would be ok in her defense versus ranged targets (she already is now!!!) but with this she becomes more versatile instead of just being a walking Turbulence-shooter.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

5 hours ago, DarkRuler2500 said:

@(PS4)RenovaKunumaru

Turbulence has not changed a thing in this concept except the duration is channeled by now. It can be disrupted and you're affected in my area blasts as well.

Tornado has a fixed duration and only sucks in close passing shots. It is far from being overpowered since it needs time to build up but still the abilities' duration is still counting down in the meantime.

Towards your wording "Protect against everything!", there are plentyful of enemies who can break that defense. She would be ok in her defense versus ranged targets (she already is now!!!) but with this she becomes more versatile instead of just being a walking Turbulence-shooter.

I should clarify but instead I'll just ask you to ignore what I wrote and wait for @Thayliens response.

[Birdframe_Prime]

10 hours ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

I should clarify but instead I'll just ask you to ignore what I wrote and wait for @Thayliens response.

Hey, don't get me in here to fight your battles just because you've fought them a dozen times over... Wait... Nevermind...

Okay, let's begin ^^ A note to you, DarkRuler, Renova is quite right, I'm not here to specifically put down your ideas, but they fall into the 'it's come up before, we discussed the S#&$ out of it, and it won't fly' if you'll pardon the pun.

19 hours ago, DarkRuler2500 said:

Her Passive "Lightweight" currently only decreases the falling speed

A little false, but mostly true, and a gripe of mine. Her passive does actually increase her jump height too, but it's only a small percentage so you only notice it on her Bullet Jump where the percentage makes up a couple of meters instead of half of one.

Lackluster, kind of. But something DE have shown by long 'not discussing' and quotes of 'we are not looking into that' is that no warframe will gain specific buffs from their passive that affect things on a large scale. This is why Ember and Frost don't have elemental resistances and why Zephyr will not get percentage based buffs to her modded stats.

You're on the right track in wanting to improve this passive, but you're going greatly against what DE design for Warframes with the suggestion.

A better idea, if you're going for stat boosts, might be a built-in Aviator or similar, but again, even that's kind of lackluster.

19 hours ago, DarkRuler2500 said:

1^st skill: Taking Flight

Say it with me now; Toggle Drain abilities on frames with low base energy are bad. Toggle drain abilities are bad. Toggle drain mean no passive energy regen from Energy Siphon, Zenurik, no regen from plates, Trinity, Harrow, nothing. You're going to be in the air, so not even Energy Orbs will be effective. Maintain that ability for any length of time and you will have no energy for her other abilities.

Next, you're getting into controversial territory. I personally love her low gravity, that's something I won't deny. Others hate it and say it's garbage. What you're not doing, without costing energy, is giving her a way to land when needed. A way to avoid the top of doorways that she hits while running. It's something even I have trouble with and want to avoid causing all the little... I really want to call them 'whiners' in this case... who dislike the passive from having another thing to whine about.

And lastly, even as well as you've tried to do it, there is no combined cast that makes Dive Bomb and Tailwind work together without any downsides. You'll end up removing one part or another and ending up with less overall for the two-part cast than you have right now.

A better idea is to pick one and make it fully functional on its own (you know, not co-dependant) and work the other into either her other abilities, a new ability, or her passive.

19 hours ago, DarkRuler2500 said:

2^nd skill: Turbulence

Once more, toggle is bad. It's terri-bad. No toggles, bad toggles.

Nice synergy, but first; Turbulence is the most changed ability in the history of Warframe, patched and updated over time to be the way it is now, and cost the energy it does now. You're not going to be able to take a defense cast that strong and make it cost 50 energy.

Second; here's some facts: A toggle drain ability, based on the stats for defense casts such as Ivara's invisibility, can never actually go below 1 energy per second. My current build, with high duration and reasonable efficiency has me casting a 52 second Turbulence for (guess what) 52 energy. The exact same duration for the energy as your toggle. The difference? I can still pick up energy from plates, I can still be refilled by Trinity and Harrow, I can still use my energy for other things. Most importantly when an Energy Leech Eximus or Disruptor Ancient walks in the room, my duration based Turbulence keeps on going. Your toggle would drain energy twice as fast, and completely lose its power, leaving you with no energy to recast, use any other ability for survival and you'd be shredded. Duration, in the case of Turbulence, literally beats Toggle, because my build doesn't even account for more the total efficiency build where you can hit 45 seconds for roughly 18-19 energy, meaning that a single energy orb is enough to refresh Turbulence, even surrounded by Eximus units (if you cast it immediately).

19 hours ago, DarkRuler2500 said:

3^rd skill: Tornado

Okay, this takes a little to get to, but here's the basic concept.

Abilities that completely stop an enemy from moving, such as Stomp, Bastille, Vortex and even the current Tornado, do not do high damage. Abilities that deal high damage do not completely control or stop enemies. Radial defense abilities that stop enemies from shooting into them do not stop enemies from walking into them, and radial abilities that stop enemies from walking into them do not stop enemies from shooting into them.

This is the balance of crowd control to damage.

Abilities that can protect a whole team from damage do no move. Abilities that can fully protect only the player from damage can move with the player.

Turbulence is a bit of an exception; it can only protect the player and team members from specific sources of damage, so it can move with the player, and has a limited range on a frame that has huge mobility (leaves her team behind at the push of a button) to prevent abuse.

You want to make a high damage, high defense ability that can protect everyone within it from damage but move around similar to the current Tornado... And you don't in some way think this is overpowered? You'll have 8 roving Magnetise casts, if you leave it long enough, ones that will continue gaining damage and range until they cap out, and then... what?

Your Tornado here will either make Turbulence literally redundant, or Turbulence will make it redundant. Your damage absorb on it makes it a blender, a high damage ability like Magnetise and Absorb, neither of which move, and your spawning new ones means it must be a toggle drain which is amazingly expensive on top of the last two toggles, how much energy do you think a Warframe has? But of course if the original range is lower than that of Turbulence, it won't even absorb damage, because Turbulence will redirect those projectiles while you're in it... unless the ability is larger, in which case why have Turbulence when it's literally absorbing all the damage you would want to redirect?

People already look at Trinity and say 'oh, her 1 is bad because her 4 does total healing to everyone in range', why would you literally make an either-or function built into Zephyr?

I think Renova is also worried because if this original Tornado travels with Zephyr, you have again crossed the line of power-to-control ratio, by making a complete damage reduction to ranged damage also have a complete damage reduction to melee by making them unable to approach.

20 hours ago, DarkRuler2500 said:

4^th skill: Wind Infusion (Name not so sure tbh)

And this is just Octavia's 4, applied to Zephyr. It either over-powers her existing over-powered new abilities, or it frustrates more by nyxing gravity entirely... Even I don't want to play in zero-G, that's just nuts, it takes away all fast mobility without an energy cost (using your method) and forces you to toggle all her abilities just to stay alive... I'm guessing this is an even bigger toggle too...

So to activate all four of her abilities at maximum duration and efficiency modding, would use up Zephyr's energy pool in 37.5 seconds just by activating them, forget using the new 1 for any movement, as channeling it would cost more, with no way to use plates, Trinity, Harrow and with no reliable way to get energy orbs either because you're using energy just to reach those orbs (like Titania, but you have to aim at them and dash to get there).

Somehow... I don't like this plan, friend, I really don't think it's been thought through for actual in-game effect.

See?

We've had these suggestions, iterations of them, refinements of them, suggested before. We know the flaws in them, and we know why they aren't very applicable to Zephyr.

I'm just the guy that talks to the new people more than I should. Renova up there is a little too jaded to do it himself anymore.