Defense Missions - Skill Tweaking

[AlvaroXDM]

I know this has been adressed several times, on different forums, and different ways, but the reason it is still being discussed is because it's a critical condition, which is not reduntant to adress more than once.

 

As for now, it is quite obvious which chars you think of when of defense missions: Frost for Grineer/Corpus - Vauban for Infested.

 

The fact that everybody is used to this, speaks of the lack of balance of this Warframes. Of course, it's their niche (At least Frost's, Vauban is more versatile) and I don't want to him them with the nerf but and make them unviable, but other warframes count with similar mechanics, wich would be cool to take into account, to make warframe more diverse.

 

Decoys: Saryn's Mold and Loki's Decoy have potential, due to their lure, to become just as efficient as Frost's Snow Globe and Vauban's Bastille. How can they achieve this? Simple - make decoys have a higher damage threshold, and a minimal duration. Mold lasts 20 seconds, make it have 15 minimal duration, and the possibility to reach the full 20 seconds if the damage threshold isn't reached. Decoy lasts 25 seconds, make it have 17.5 minimal duration and reach the full 25 seconds duration if damage threshold isn't reached. Make both the minimal AND maximal duration be affected by continuity.

 

Snowglove/Bastille fix: Make Snow Globe have a damage threshold, AND a minimal duration. 30 seconds max, 22.5 min. In the case of Bastille, since no enemies damage Bastille maybe you could make, the same minimal and max duration, and put the threshold on number of enemies suspended.

 

Rhino's Iron skin: Make Rhino's Iron skin a taunt, so it benefits the whole team, not being such a selfish buff, AND making it less effective since it will concentrate all damage.

 

Nyx's Absorb: Make the absorb gather all nearby bullets and DPS, somehow like Mag's Bullet Attractor, so that she can cast Absorb on defense missions to protect Cryopods.

 

Mag's Bullet Attractor: Let Mag cast bullet attractor on normal surfaces (Maybe pressing alt something, so if you misclick an enemy you don't ruin the effect), so she can place it in front of the Cryopod to protect it from incoming bullets (from certain direction) - (Add damage threshold and min and max duration on this modality)

 

Volt's Electric shield: Make it taller, so it is viable option to cast up to 3 shields to protect the Cryopod (Add damage threshold and min and max duration on this modality)

 

Ash's Smocrescreen: Make lingering AoE cloud last longer making enemies fail to hit the cryopod.

 

This way, even when Frost and Vauban would be prefered choices, they would not be a "must have" on defensive misions, adding to squad diversity and fun gameplay!

 

Have fun and a great day! :)

Edited July 22, 2013 by AlvaroXDM

[kgb_cyborg]

Without taking away from your suggestions, some of which I agree with and some I don't (more specific feedback on this later), devs could also consider lifting up other mission types to the reward calibre of Endless Defense. Obviously everyone is going to play Endless Defense because there is *nowhere else* to get the new Void keys (that is, capture, endless defense and mobile defense), other than the market, where the absence of more than one method of getting keys means the keys you get will be diluted by old key types (raid and exterminate).

 

Similarly, one of the most reliable way of getting certain mods, such as Master Thief, Thunderbolt, Handspring, multishot mods and others, is Endless Defense.

 

Making Endless Defense less front and centre in terms of mission rewards would also aid in making other frames feel more useful.

 

As for your specific skill suggestions: first of all I'd oppose nerfing either Snow Globe or Bastille, certainly as things stand. Making Volt's Electric Shield bigger would be a very simple, very effective method of increasing his utility; the alternative I've heard mentioned is making it mobile, so it travels with him, but as I generally prefer skills with team interactions, I'd say I'm more in favour of making it bigger (significantly so). Nyx's Absorb needs to take on aspects of Antimatter Drop and Bullet Attractor to become viable, as devs have stated the aggro on Absorb is already as high as it can go. That is, damage absorbed needs to amplified up to x4 at max rank, needs to absorb bullets from a greater area, and some consideration should be given to removing the damage limit (increasing rank would instead increase damage amplification and area of absorption).

 

Ash and Rhino I haven't played, your smokescreen suggestion sounds good, but from what I understand of Iron Skin, the last thing you want to do is give it a taunt while making it LESS effective. If Iron Skin had a taunt as it currently stands and you activated it in a high level mission you would be dead inside of seconds, so it would need to be MORE effective for this to work, it seems to me.

 

Molt and Decoy could use some high-level utility, but at the same time they are both cheap skills, I would put the minimum duration much lower (<10s).

 

Bullet Attractor - if this skill doesn't get scrapped, your suggestion certainly has some merit. The measures that have been taken to attempt to make this skill worth its 75 energy have made it monstrous. The size of the attractor sphere is absurd, it still takes damage away from weakpoints; it would be MORE useful if you could target terrain, no doubt. Equally if it was a cheaper, less intrusive skill that you could spam on grunts for the explosion damage, but that wouldn't be very magnetic, would it?

[NyxeK]

I only use vauban for Infested defense, I don't think he has another useful purpose, since he hasn't good DPS nor escape abilities, his main power is the Crowd Control, and if you just take it off (I know you are not saying about taking it off, but just making that the Bastille only holds up some enemies it's like nerfing it too much, you would have to watch out with the enemies who don't get suspended in air and that would be confusing and annoying) you pretty f*ck him up, and his utility

Edited July 22, 2013 by NyxeK

[Solaurus]

I have to admit I stopped reading when you called the warframes "Champions". This isn't League of Legends.

[Oizen]

You do know Snowglobe does have end right?

 

It can just be extended with Constituion and Continuity. Its maxed duration is 30 seconds. With one of those mods it lasts 39 seconds. With both 48 seconds.

 

Nerfing it would literally drop Frost to useless tier.
 

 

As for Vauban. He's only amazing in Xini.

 

I really wish people would stop basing balancing based on what they can do in xini.

[AlvaroXDM]

I have to admit I stopped reading when you called the warframes "Champions". This isn't League of Legends.

Lol, my bad, editing :P

Actually was thinking of other game, :(

Edited July 22, 2013 by AlvaroXDM

[AlvaroXDM]

You do know Snowglobe does have end right?

 

It can just be extended with Constituion and Continuity. Its maxed duration is 30 seconds. With one of those mods it lasts 39 seconds. With both 48 seconds.

 

Nerfing it would literally drop Frost to useless tier.

 

 

As for Vauban. He's only amazing in Xini.

 

I really wish people would stop basing balancing based on what they can do in xini.

Yes, a 48 second duration..on a 50 energy skill - Are you serious?...

Let's say you have ONLY 300 energy per wave (you usually get more...) you have 288 seconds of duration...are you serious?...

 

Nerfing it wouldn't drop Frost to useless tier, you could have it active with the same amount of energy for less duration, making missions actually worth it. Not just sitting there on the globe kiling things.

 

 

I only use vauban for Infested defense, I don't think he has another useful purpose, since he hasn't good DPS nor escape abilities, his main power is the Crowd Control, and if you just take it off (I know you are not saying about taking it off, but just making that the Bastille only holds up some enemies it's like nerfing it too much, you would have to watch out with the enemies who don't get suspended in air and that would be confusing and annoying) you pretty f*ck him up, and his utility

 

I don't think Vauban's utility ends there - Tesla is one of the best low cost skill the game has. Yes, his bounce isn't too interesting...but his Vortex could get a buff - and you would have 2 ways of good AoE control. You would still have that minimal duration, which as I said, it's not a 50% reduction, just a slight nerf to make it more energy demanding and to have it down from time to time instead of the always up.

[AlvaroXDM]

Without taking away from your suggestions, some of which I agree with and some I don't (more specific feedback on this later), devs could also consider lifting up other mission types to the reward calibre of Endless Defense. Obviously everyone is going to play Endless Defense because there is *nowhere else* to get the new Void keys (that is, capture, endless defense and mobile defense), other than the market, where the absence of more than one method of getting keys means the keys you get will be diluted by old key types (raid and exterminate).

 

Similarly, one of the most reliable way of getting certain mods, such as Master Thief, Thunderbolt, Handspring, multishot mods and others, is Endless Defense.

 

Making Endless Defense less front and centre in terms of mission rewards would also aid in making other frames feel more useful.

 

As for your specific skill suggestions: first of all I'd oppose nerfing either Snow Globe or Bastille, certainly as things stand. Making Volt's Electric Shield bigger would be a very simple, very effective method of increasing his utility; the alternative I've heard mentioned is making it mobile, so it travels with him, but as I generally prefer skills with team interactions, I'd say I'm more in favour of making it bigger (significantly so). Nyx's Absorb needs to take on aspects of Antimatter Drop and Bullet Attractor to become viable, as devs have stated the aggro on Absorb is already as high as it can go. That is, damage absorbed needs to amplified up to x4 at max rank, needs to absorb bullets from a greater area, and some consideration should be given to removing the damage limit (increasing rank would instead increase damage amplification and area of absorption).

 

Ash and Rhino I haven't played, your smokescreen suggestion sounds good, but from what I understand of Iron Skin, the last thing you want to do is give it a taunt while making it LESS effective. If Iron Skin had a taunt as it currently stands and you activated it in a high level mission you would be dead inside of seconds, so it would need to be MORE effective for this to work, it seems to me.

 

Molt and Decoy could use some high-level utility, but at the same time they are both cheap skills, I would put the minimum duration much lower (<10s).

 

Bullet Attractor - if this skill doesn't get scrapped, your suggestion certainly has some merit. The measures that have been taken to attempt to make this skill worth its 75 energy have made it monstrous. The size of the attractor sphere is absurd, it still takes damage away from weakpoints; it would be MORE useful if you could target terrain, no doubt. Equally if it was a cheaper, less intrusive skill that you could spam on grunts for the explosion damage, but that wouldn't be very magnetic, would it?

 

I agree with you in all your critics and feeback, maybe not in Rhino. It wouldn't make it less effective as a skill, I wanted to say it would make it a less "op" selfish skill. As if it taunted while it had the skin, it would be easier to deplete, and it would require more energy to keep it up. Plus, it would help all teammates, not only yourself. Rhino would actually begin to be a nice tank and a nice support with his buff, this taunt, his stomp, etc. Yes, maybe in really high levels the taunt isn't a good idea - the problem is the damage absorption not scaling with anything :( too OP on low levels, end up quite bad on high levels. Maybe add a fix damage reduction?