Why exactly is Chroma allowed to use self damage for Vex armor?

[Epsik-kun]

1 minute ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

So, could you spell it out, plain and simple, in 1-3 sentences

 

Sure, darling!

11 hours ago, Epsik-kun said:

I don't even care about the topic itself, but this particular statement is straight-up false. Transferring an arbitrary amount of self-damage into a single magnetic nuke with no corrosive/slash/viral proc potential, headshot/crit/stealth/CO synergy, melee availability, and questionable range of available weapons paired with a heavy energy cost, excessively long animation and mediocre area of effect is virtually nothing compared to x7+ damage for over a minute in a single cast without any of the aforementioned downsides.

Absorb tanks a lot of damage, but it is worthless at damage-dealing.

Oh, wait.

[(XBOX)Rhythm Grey]

what i want to see going away is the amount of damage that a properly built ice chroma can take from my freakin penta... why is it that when i have elemental ward and vex armor up do i get one shot by my penta...

[Ketec]

Because self damage is the only reliable way to get the buff before timer runs out.
Because you need to take HEALTH damage - and shields are in the way.
I'd be fine with losing self damage - if i didn't have to deal with shields - even having no shields at all in exchange of increased hp if you use red energy color for example.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Ketec

[ZodiacShinryu]

Text Wall incoming with TLDR in bold.

This is something we can talk about when Chroma gets a rework. In general, Chroma never "needs" to self-damage for 95% of content; either the content is too low where Vex isn't even needed or its high enough where hell build it passively as intended (or I guess too high where he struggles to build it because enemies destroy him too fast for Scorn to build).

Where does self-damage become useful? When there is content with a predetermined DPS check/gate like entering a boss room or the new content Teralysts (likely the biggest reason this thread was even made). To be clear, you don't at all need self damage for Teralyst to reach max Fury but if you're in a meta comp squad there are some major limitations if you want to steamline the fight:

1. Trinity, in general, are never helpful to Chroma. Blessing does pretty much everything to stop you from reaching max Fury by not only recovering your shields but adding another layer of protection on top of it. Depending on the build of the Trinity, you might end up with a powerful and long DR that slows the stacking of Fury to a crawl or a Trinity with higher efficiency might decide spam it constantly recovering your shields to prevent stacking altogether.
2. The Teralyst deals damage randomly and infrequently (with the exception of his "Star Shower Shot") even his puddles deal miniscule amounts of damage thanks to Scorn.

This is just for the Teralyst. From personally experience, if I miss-time the stacking of Vex then the other members (generally trinity, a buffer like rhino, and harrow or another dps like mirage) will kill the limb without max Fury or even me taking a shot with the hoops you have to jump through during the encounter. All the while, when I'm stacking Fury (whether I self-damage or not) I am not shooting the teralyst's shields thus technically slowing the overall encounter. My point is that self-damage makes Chroma slightly more reliable when there are options to just ignore him with the likes of Octavia (who can give Chroma level damage buffs to the WHOLE squad) or Oberon Smite augment doing just as well as an additive buff for the rest of the squad.

While we're here we can talk about the rest of limitations to Vex from the squad:

• Any frame that generates shields (or companions) for the rest of the squad (Trinity, Mag Volt, etc) make stacking Fury painful. Trinity and Volt with their respective augments also provide a greater barrier by providing overshields quickly; nevermind Fury you cant even stack Scorn anymore.
• Any frame that helps prevent/slow damage in general (Harrow, Frost, Nezha, Trinity, Limbo, etc) prevent the use of Vex.
• Any frame with large and highly potent CC that disables enemies completely (there are lots) prevent the use of Vex.
• I'll add it because its there though at that point you probably don't need Vex. And it is High AoE frames/weapons that quickly decimate enemy ranks prevent the use of Vex.

TLDR; This situation is much different than DE disabling self-damage on the likes of Rhino Ironskin or Nezha Warding Halo. Ironskin and Warding Halo (even old 99DR Blessing Trinity) have a base benefit that you get regardless of what happens. Vex Armor on the other hand is nothing unless he is hit (in a game where the best response is to not get hit with the meta doing everything possible to make it near impossible to be hit) and technically can be oneshot with enough damage on a fresh cast without the bonuses. At this point disabling self-damage on Chroma's Vex Armor only serves to cripple him in response to a small piece of content that he is not actually needed for in the first place.

Don't get me wrong there are certain issues I have with self-damage and I don't think any frame should feel it necessary to abuse it to get any benefits from their kit. And there are some questionably cheesy builds that became quite viable for the purpose of farming Teralysts because of self-damage and the fact that you only need the damage buff for all of 10secs at a time against them.

2 hours ago, Ketec said:

I'd be fine with losing self damage - if i didn't have to deal with shields - even having no shields at all in exchange of increased hp if you use red energy color for example.

Technically if you wanted to be proactive you can equip the shield reducing Dragon Void Key (decaying or extinguishing?) then I think he only has 75 shields without shield mods.

[Soketsu]

On 25/10/2017 at 12:03 AM, Zysyx said:

Because no one uses equinox and even if they did, they'd rarely use her night form. Most only see equinox as a budget ember prime because they dont want to forma/potato a normal ember.

But is sleep is so cool, ennemy don't moove and they become so weak to melee attacks :3

Anyway back to the topic I just want to ask a question, there is an achievment to propose the most pointless & incomplete nerf/rework ?

[o.0-]

If the intent is to be salty about how Chroma has been for a very long time, that's one thing, and better off in General Discussion.

If we can discuss tweaking the kit in this thread, I'm all for it.

Chroma is one of my favorite frames, and so I've spent time thinking of how best to approach adjusting his abilities.

As anyone who regularly uses Chroma would notice, Elemental Ward and Vex Armor should be not the only abilities he relies all the time, having little room for using Spectral Scream and Effigy with tougher content as their limits and current setup become liabilities, such as the Elmo hunt on the plains, that seems to have spurred this thread onward.

What I've been brainstorming is switching up the order of his abilities and modifying a few mechanics here and there.

1. If you are interested in reading the ideas, I have them here:

Spoiler

 

1. Dragon Sentry - 'Effigy'   Energy Cost: 50

• Main changes, replaces energy drain with a health decay on the Sentry. When health reaches zero, returns as the pelt on Chroma and regens Sentry health when worn, as builds add on a lot of health through Pwr Str, the base value drain might be okay to keep.
• Pelt draws aggro and retains 335 base Armor, Chroma has reduced aggro, 15 base armor and 1.15 sprint speed.
• Guided Effigy Augment should see no changes.
  • Note: Needs 299% Power Strength to reach 1,196 damage, compared to Oberon's Smite, which can reach 1,495 so should be fine with little changes as a 1st ability.

2. Elemental Ward             Energy Cost: 50

• Base Aura Share Range is extended.
• Augment should remain unchanged.

3. Vex Armor                     Energy Cost: 75

• Adds a tap/hold functionality. Tap allows Chroma to have Vex Armor charge normally when receiving fire as it currently works.
• Hold allows Chroma to charge Scorn to boost up armor first, by draining Shields, maybe allow Fury to drain health to charge, once Scorn has reached limit.
• Adds a rate decay when not in active combat dealing and/or receiving damage.

4. Spectral Scream            Energy Cost: 25

• Spectral Scream benefits from some Primary Weapon mods.
• Could have increased energy drain.
• Activating when wearing Pelt, the energy Wings allows Chroma to hover off the ground, so can do a few new movements.
  • Using Roll causes Chroma to use Wings to stun enemies at a energy cost.
  • Crouch activates a Taunt which attracts enemies to Chroma and away from others.
  • Holding Sprint allows for a Charge at the cost of energy.
• Activating when Dragon Sentry is active, could make the Sentry's attack ability stronger, grants Chroma the ability to dump lethal damage into the Pelt and increased evasion.
• Augment should remain unchanged.

Passive: Elemental Alignment, unchanged.

originally shared here, with further ideas that were offered to see what others thought of further idea tweaks to Chroma:

 

 

[(PSN)MrNishi]

On 10/24/2017 at 8:59 AM, mac10smg-ToaOfGreen said:

So? Trinity had the possibility of killing herself when the 99% DR Blessing was a thing.

Trinity can still kill herself but she also is still allowed to benefit from Self-harm.

Trinity can still utilize Link with Self-harm to kill enemies. (Abating Link Armor removal either makes Self-harm less useful or more effective (depending on weapon strength or Sortie Elemental/Physical)*

Chroma's Self-harm is 2 sided 

While it does increase his protection and damage, that damage buff allows the Self-harm to bypass his buffed protection (Scorn - Armor)

Nyx Non-Augment Absorb is the other psuedo self+harm catch-22: Increases Bubble damage by exploding Grenades/Talons/Castanas while in bubble, but that also drains energy or destroys bubble longevity.

 

 

 

[Kletse]

On 24-10-2017 at 5:16 PM, Very_Melon said:

Every other frame that has an ability boosted by taking/absorbing damage either had this functionality patched out or never got it in the first place since it came after the patched ones.

In order words.. I want it nerfed.why dont you say it directly.. Is it because you hope DE sees all the different threads about chroma (who all want the same) and hope it gets nerfed?

Ofcourse you do.