Zephyr vs Zephyr: The Rework

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

The problem with Zephyr isn't that she's bad. It's that her kit is misrepresented in a way that doesn't embrace the usefulness her skills can provide if done right.

Passive: Tailwind & Lightweight

No matter how you look at it, Tailwind only offers players a function of mobility. Adding any effect to it to give it further functionality just makes the move as a skill that rivals Dive Bomb, and acts as its catalyst, not to truly synergize with it. The idea is that any effect given to tailwind can easily be applied to Divebomb which leads to think that the moves are too identical. 

If Tailwind is given a knockdown effect, what would make it different from an aimable divebomb? The differences are too small.

Classic:

Tailwind is infused into Zephyrs passive abilities, being offered as she presses sprint during aimglide. 
A classic Zephyr maneuver implemented into familiar mechanic.
 

Modern:

I suggest Tailwind be replaced as a glide mechanic in Zephyrs passive. 
The glide would resemble something of the likes of Sora from Kingdom Hearts. The glide is a slower but more controlled approach to "flying" and offers Zephyr an increased evasiveness stat. Also enabled through pressing sprint while aimgliding. 

New* 1st Ability

Classic:

N/A for obvious reasons.

Modern:

Zephyr shoots a cylinder of wind that grabs enemies and blows them into order.

The idea is that the move is a cylinder, not a cone that utilizes puncture to hurl enemies to a location. Think of it like a "wind lance" impaling a target into the wall while also dragging enemies into its positioning that are in the wake of the abilities path. The skill offers itself as a setup tool to give Zephyr a cluster of enemies to attack as she synergizes exceptionally well with explosive weapons and projectiles.

 

Divebomb

 Gif explains it all.

Skill | Description
---|---
Divebomb| Divebomb is a skill that allows Zephyr to take advantage of her height from aerial maneuverability to smash into her foes and cause AoE damage.

How it Should Change Regardless

1. Divebomb mechanic should allow free aim targeting for precise positioning of the attack as well as
2. Scale with melee damage mods for viability.

Classic:

Casting Divebomb while Grounded causes Zephyr to launch vertically to the same extent of the original Tailwind. Using the animation from the original Telos Boltace effect, enemies are slashed and suffer a blast proc for knockdown.

• Vertical Launch When Grounded
• Blast Proc on Vertical launch
•  Aimable Divebomb from Air that Scales

Modern:

Casting Divebomb While grounded cause Zephyr to launch vertically to the same extent of the original Tailwind while lifting enemies inits AoE and suspending them for a duration. Considering the idea that enemies take on the "lightweight" perk and reduced gravity they are lifted with the winds helplessly.

Enemies caught in the wake of a grounded Divebomb are lifted and suspended in air with Zephyr. Crashing down with Divebomb has all the enemies in the air follow Zephyr with the crash.

Divebomb is not a bad skill. It however suffers from, terrible base stats, limited viability in damage and CC, and forced synergy from a dependency of casting grounded tailwind. The move couldn't be applied on its own. 

• Vertical Launch when grounded
• Enemies are suspended in air with Zephyr in helpless state.

Tornado

Classic:

Tornadoes seek out targets and trap them for a duration. Tornadoes damage can be amplified by shooting them with decay of status chance and damage matching 100% of weapons input scaled through power strength.

• So...Shooting into a Tornado charges up the damage the tornado inflicts with the damage decaying like Nekros' shadows of the dead's health put in simpler terms.

Modern:

Pressing 4 Summons the normal tornadoes that seek out targets and trap foes. The tornadoes have a guaranteed hold to trap enemies and cause status procs on each unit. The status procs are the majority of the affliction with small damage numbers coming to play.  

This sets up Zephyrs 4 Tornadoes as debuffers to the enemies.

• Status inflicting 
• Traps Enemies (limited amount of enemies can be trapped scaling with Power Strength. All other enemies are tossed.)
• Cannot Shoot into Tornados for damage (only status). Warframe Powers and Melee weapons do affect however.

Upon pressing 4 again while the skill is active, Zephyr recalls all of the tornadoes at once to her position to combine into a single storm. The storm does damage over time to all enemies engulfed in it while inflicting random status procs. Shooting from inside the storm amplifies multishot, projectile speed, maxes out accuracy. Enemies shooting into the storm have their damage reduced. Hold 4 to cancel skill early.

• Enemies inside are trapped. 
• Enemies Take DoT and Random Status
• Enemies Can shoot into w/ reduced damage from inside or out.. ( Or Allies can have damage reduction haven't decided)
• Increased Multishot, Projectile Speed, and Maxed Accuracy when firing from inside Storm.

My other thread if you like to read.

Spoiler

[](https://forums.warframe.com/topic/696398-fun-zephyr-rework-w-pictures/)

 

Edited September 11, 2017 by (PS4)RenovaKunumaru

[Birdframe_Prime]

Hmmm, bare bones, but with room for improvement and adjustment.

I like the classic improvements all round, but the alternative modern ones leave some questions as to what specifically they would do in game.

I mean, sure, you know I don't like glides ^^ but I definitely think that the trigger combo for activating either passive change is a good one. The question I would have with the glide idea, however, is would you have to hold sprint constantly and then release it to stop? Or is there a second trigger that would then release it? I know that people are used to holding sprint, so that would make sense, and as long as you don't have to hold Aim Glide the entire time it would solve the issues with that side of things too, just curious as to which method you had envisioned.

New 1st ability is also good. I take it that this is a straight corridor of effect (like a big energy beam) that drags enemies to the end of it? So it's like my Dervish idea in a sense, which effectively places all enemies in a direct line from the caster into a specific point, but yours is much faster to take effect. This could be interesting. Am I right in saying that the cast is similar to a beam? So that you can cast it in any direction? Or are you envisioning it more like the Katabatic Vortex idea that casts on a point and drags enemies towards it?

The classic Dive Bomb change is simple, I like it. There is still the element of the thing I don't like about the current Tailwind, through, which is that (even if it's your second ability) the first resort of this cast is to launch away from the fight. I mean, yes you do that with a good CC effect, but after that your only real choices are to then move with Tailwind or come back down again with the in-air cast. Definitely this should be aim-able at angles towards the ground, and scale with melee, that's something I've liked since I first heard it, but there's that forced synergy again. It's better, don't get me wrong, because it's contained as a combo within itself, launch and land, but it's something that I've been trying to avoid more and more.

It's even more pronounced in the modern version, where you've added the lift. Now I personally think the lift is great CC, it's particularly good (and one I even used the idea before myself the once) for those difficult mobs that need time to kill where you can leave them drifting down and deal large amounts of damage to them while they're immobilised by the hang-time in the same kind of way that Stomp works. However again you're left with only the two options, move away or drop/Dive Bomb back down again. In fact the Dive Bomb back down again option in both cases will deal the maximum amount of effective damage for the ability, so it's going to be the default use of the cast in most people's eyes, and having it be an additional cast to do that might be an interesting thought to consider on cost (leaving the ability at 25 energy might work, you see, because then it might achieve that original 'DE Concept' that Tailwind and Dive Bomb were supposed to work together for best effect).

In either case, the large part of the ability is sound with either improvement, I do like them, it just hits that little sore spot with me that we figured out earlier; that the launch is basically the forced dependency of the ability, once you launch you have to do something, there is no 'launch and the cast is done'.

And for Tornado... hmmm.

Well, if enemies are genuinely trapped, like Bastille for example, where strength builds cause more to be trapped in each funnel before it starts flinging enemies instead, then that's actually not a bad thought.

It doesn't address the issue of how Tornado wanders off and its slow speed and poor pick-up radius on each funnel, but it does make the ability interactive by making the ability ramp up with player actions, which is a good idea. Especially with four separate funnels because you then have to pay attention to where they are and maintain them, and a longer duration cast on this would actually be more beneficial because the ramped damage would be easier to maintain against higher level enemies.

The modern variant is a more interesting one, where instead of damage you're going for status. Am I right in thinking that the status that can be applied are based on how many different ones you can put in? So that you can put in three or four or more and then the funnels apply them randomly? Which means it's a balance then of what you want to mod for, because if you just want to strip armour, putting in pure corrosive is the way to go, but if you want maximum amount of types of applied effect you could mod your guns for four different status types (which honestly we should be in case Stalker or Sentients pop up...) and put all of them into the funnels and let them run rampant.

The secondary effect of tapping 4 to make them converge seems a little iffy to me, though, because there's always going to be that point about which side of the ability is better. Is it better to have four wandering casts that can pick up enemies from further away? Is it better to have the centralised version that offers all the buffs to you and your allies? Will Zephyr still be considered annoying if the player doesn't use the stage 2, or will stage 2 make her combination of it interrupting enemies trying to approach and Turbulence deflecting all incoming projectiles too powerful?

It's a balance you'll have to think about, at least a little more, because that could be a choice that makes or breaks the ability. People that want the buffs will complain that they have to cast it and then tap again to converge it and they can't get the buffs immediately (because they're special snowflakes, yes, but they'll still want the buffs all the time) and people that want ranged seeking CC will be annoyed every time they accidentally tap it again and converge their cast into a single spot.

Does the cast still move around while converged? Does having an active cancel compensate for an accidental convergence? If it can be un-converged and re-converged at will, wouldn't that be very powerful as a CC ability, being able to bring all four funnels to you anywhere you are to make them chew through targets they wouldn't normally be seeking? Wouldn't it be almost as powerful even as it stands with a single convergence, where you could cast in one place, run to another, and converge the casts to basically trail along behind you to that spot, grabbing and throwing all the enemies along the way?

Things to consider.

I may think of more in the future, but let's see how the discussion goes with the points I've made so far XD

Nice work!

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

3 hours ago, Thaylien said:

The question I would have with the glide idea, however, is would you have to hold sprint constantly and then release it to stop?

Once you activate it zephyr would maintain a form in which she glides looking forward with her hands by her side like the tailwind animation. You remain in that animation until you press another button be that an attack or jump ect. Its literally just a mobility tool that offers evasiveness at a moderately increased speed. 

 

3 hours ago, Thaylien said:

New 1st ability is also good. I take it that this is a straight corridor of effect (like a big energy beam

Yes!!! You've nailed exactly what I tried to describe. Like a Wind opticor that has a small pickup area of Effect. Its meant to hurl enemies into where you're targeting and pile them up similar to Nidus' Larva but without the hold, just a knockdown. Or perhaps a 2 sec hold or something. Haven't decided what makes sense.

 

3 hours ago, Thaylien said:

your only real choices are to then move with Tailwind or come back down again with the in-air cast.

This is where it gets tricky. 

The classic style is meant to offer the original function with viability. Thats all. For the people who think Zephyr as is is good as is. I've only suggested the bare minimum of improvements that makes the skill useful.

With the modern style the skill is used as a setup for air melee, dive bomb, aimglide shooting up and personal, but most importantly, can be combo'ed with the modern 1 to control the map. Think of it as a reverse Mag. Instead of pulling the enemies off the stage (I love doing that with Mag) I gather them up and push them. Or perhaps I bring them up to position them in a place where my Primary feels more effective. I personally use aimgliding slide attacks now because they're fun and effective so that also becomes viable. Being able to control the enemies positioning is the main tool for the lift and

I can see the skepticism. Its kind of what Tornadoes do in this rework how ever this is unrestricted in the amount of enemies it and reposition as its only determined by your positioning and not an arbitrary cap. Speaking of tornado...

3 hours ago, Thaylien said:

It doesn't address the issue of how Tornado wanders off and its slow speed and poor pick-up radius on each funnel,

I kind of want the same ideas we discussed earlier in which tornadoes have a set range and pickup radius, not wandering from example, a 25m raduis of its initial cast, and recast is a cancel. Manipulated by range stat.

 

3 hours ago, Thaylien said:

The modern variant is a more interesting one

This is a bit tricky as well. 

1. The idea is that a 4 cast only costs energy once. The only time energy is used again is when the 4th has expired or force ended. 
2. The 1st part of the skill promotes status affects but prohibits gunplay. The balance is that Zephyr cannot take up the entire map prohibiting gunplay (like say..Limbo *cough cough*) because her tornadoes pickup is restricted through power strength limits. Warframe powers and Melee still effect. I was even considering just limiting the amount of damage done by weapons to 10% instead to stop trolls from hostaging enemies. Still need to work out kinks although melee is still viable.
3. The 2nd part is for Damage. Think of it as a clear winds surrounding your position 15m. Stationary. It proves as a damage buff and a debuffer to enemies. Doesn't block damage so it is unique enough that it isnt a frost bubble.
4. Recasting 4 again disperses the "Storm" back into 4 tornadoes once more. 

I'm trying to answer everything as quick as possible so you get the idea and I'll reread and continue more when I find things I've missed. Just want you to get a better understanding quickly.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

Reviving this

[wezling]

On 9/4/2017 at 9:04 AM, Thaylien said:

Well, if enemies are genuinely trapped, like Bastille for example, where strength builds cause more to be trapped in each funnel before it starts flinging enemies instead, then that's actually not a bad thought.

I actually really like this idea for tornadoes.

 

But overall the concept is good. I don't 100% agree with everything but i do like where you're starting.

 

Oh, and I hope you don't mind I borrowed your air javelin idea to add to my post, but with full credit to you. If you would like me to remove it I will gladly. I just want to keep track of all the really good new ability ideas so that people don't have to fish around for them. 
Feel free to take a look: