Ash Feedback

[Yperkeimenos]

Hi all,recently i acquired Ash prime and started experimenting a bit to get a feel of how he plays and have to say that i'm somewhat disappointed. First of all Bladestorm is Ashe's trademark ability and the rework makes it feel awkward and clunky to use. By the time i get to mark and execute a few enemies my teammates have killed double as much. That's partly because marking takes quite some time,unless the enemies are grouped close together and due to the fact that it's a two step triggered ability. Also the old annoying animation is still there and the energy requirements for using it quite high ,so all in all i find this rework to be a step backwards or more precisely in the wrong direction. More so, when most other Warframes have AoE powers that can control, kill,or set on fire entire groups of enemies both figuratively and literally speaking. Now the changes made to smoke screen are in the right direction however do not alter the fact that if i want invisibility i can simply go for a Loki and ignore Ash all together. In the end the only viable option is a combination of  Fatal Teleport and Lethality, with some use for Seeking Suriken making him a very one dimensional warframe. Some people mistake hardcore gaming for fun but not all players are like that and playing Ash really doesn't make me feel like a powerful ninja but more like a novice trying to find his way around the world.

EDIT : Things are even worse if someone is using the mouse roller to select powers. In that case Bladestorm becomes a three step ability. First you have to select it, then activate it to start marking and then activate it again to execute it. This is so time consuming it renders the ability almost useless.

EDIT 2 : As i keep playing ,perhaps one of the most annoying features is that Blade Storm actively subtracts in advance the energy cost for each enemy marked. This means that if you don't want to use it immediately it'll drain all your energy reserves quickly, even if you don't activate it. I found this to be extremely annoying as it can also waste energy orbs.

EDIT 3 : Reading the comments here and elsewhere i can clearly see that DE's Ash rework was done in a hurry and without much thought, leaving the player base unsatisfied. Seems like it's a must to do a serious and well thought out, in depth remake of Ash as a frame. Anyway I've been playing him with a Rage + Quick thinking + Steel Fiber + Arcane Ultimatum combo and seems to work well. I also use a different keyboard setting that allows me to activate his abilities more quickly , however he is still sub par in his Aoe abilities and plays in very one dimensional way. By the way, that Bladestorm animation is killing me.

Edited November 2, 2017 by Yperkeimenos

[Nazrethim]

Welcome to La Résistance

Edited October 25, 2017 by Nazrethim

[(PSN)Radehx]

If you want to run a CL dagger setup, imo Ivara beats Ash...however...he's crazy strong as a Seeking Shuriken armor stripper paired with a viral/gas weapon like the Zarr, Pox or Atterax/Lesion. Strip armor, halve their health and everything turns into paper even without CL daggers.

If you want a CC stealth frame, pick Loki. If you want methodical CL dagger stealth, pick Ivara. If you want an aggro armor stripping stealther that uses regular weapons, as in, more of a run & gun damage stealth frame, pick Ash. 

Bladestorm is fine at "normal" levels, but eventually, you should just use his 3 instead at higher levels. Personally, I believe the Seeking Shuriken armor stripping setup is both stronger and more helpful to your team. 

[Nazrethim]

4 hours ago, (PS4)Radehx said:

Bladestorm is fine at "normal" levels, but eventually, you should just use his 3 instead at higher levels. Personally, I believe the Seeking Shuriken armor stripping setup is both stronger and more helpful to your team. 

Actually, with it's ridiculous cost and slow execution and general build requirements to make it useful. BS is outperformed at levels lower than 30 by Shuriken and by pretty much everything at all levels. The only real use BS has is to cover up the enemies Teleport can't kill.

[(PSN)Radehx]

19 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Actually, with it's ridiculous cost and slow execution and general build requirements to make it useful. BS is outperformed at levels lower than 30 by Shuriken and by pretty much everything at all levels. The only real use BS has is to cover up the enemies Teleport can't kill.

I use it as my "get out of jail" emergency and pretty much always have it on...despite being more of a Shuriken guy. If I get in trouble, I can trigger my 4 and buy myself a few seconds. Kinda hard to pull off without Primed Flow though if a lot of enemies are around. 

A lot of frames have ults that aren't as great as the other skills. Mesa's peacemaker is fun for example, but imo both her 2 and 3 are actually what carries you into late game. Same with Equinox...his Maim is amazing in teams, but solo, you'll get further with a calm & frenzy setup. Wukong's defy is arguably what makes him strong, not his 4. I could go on ;)

[Nazrethim]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Radehx said:

I use it as my "get out of jail" emergency and pretty much always have it on...despite being more of a Shuriken guy. If I get in trouble, I can trigger my 4 and buy myself a few seconds. Kinda hard to pull off without Primed Flow though if a lot of enemies are around. 

A lot of frames have ults that aren't as great as the other skills. Mesa's peacemaker is fun for example, but imo both her 2 and 3 are actually what carries you into late game. Same with Equinox...his Maim is amazing in teams, but solo, you'll get further with a calm & frenzy setup. Wukong's defy is arguably what makes him strong, not his 4. I could go on ;)

I use it just to kill Dargyns on plains whenever I go without a hitscan gun for whatever reason. Other than that Smoke Screen provides better protection for a fraction of the cost and longer duration and anything else does same or more damage  in the same time for a fraction of the cost (or no cost at all)

[Xaiken-EN-]

I've main Ash ever since I acquired him back in 2014. Ash accounts for about 60% of my +1300hrs of playtime. Bladestorm has always been funky. Although it is more interactive now than its previous iterations, it's easily out performed and still quite boring to use. Fatal Teleport and Covert Lethality, albeit powerful, is too slow and unreliable for me.

What makes Ash different than Loki and Ivara is that Ash is more geared towards damage. I build Ash for Smoke Screen and Seeking Shuriken. I strip the armor from the enemy and go nuts with a slash/status heavy weapon to take advantage of his passive. Ash also has more survivability than Loki and Ivara, letting him jump into the middle of a group of enemies and go ham. Other than one-shot bs, Ash will live through most crossfire he gets caught up in. 

If I were to make any changes to his base kit without reworking abilities completely, it would be adding a third manually aimed shuriken to Shuriken and making his Teleport free target without Fatal Teleport.

[DatDarkOne]

1 hour ago, Xaiken said:

Ash also has more survivability than Loki and Ivara, letting him jump into the middle of a group of enemies and go ham.

Uhmmm, that's not quite true fellow Tenno.  Ash does not out survive Ivara.  Everything else you said I can agree with.  

[Nazrethim]

1 hour ago, DatDarkOne said:

Uhmmm, that's not quite true fellow Tenno.  Ash does not out survive Ivara.  Everything else you said I can agree with.  

By raw stats he does. Ivara and Loki are the squishiest frames while Ash has somewhat tanky stats (in fact, before Inaros released, he had the highest base health pool)

[Nazrethim]

3 hours ago, Xaiken said:

If I were to make any changes to his base kit without reworking abilities completely, it would be adding a third manually aimed shuriken to Shuriken and making his Teleport free target without Fatal Teleport.

Add to that list:

BS no longer has that multimark nonsense and clones assist Ash to make the execution faster.

[DatDarkOne]

8 hours ago, Nazrethim said:

By raw stats he does. Ivara and Loki are the squishiest frames while Ash has somewhat tanky stats (in fact, before Inaros released, he had the highest base health pool)

Hehe, that's an example of how stats don't show the whole story. 

Kinda like how the AkMagnus has higher effective dps than the AkLex Prime due to not having the massive recoil.  It's the little things.  :D

Edited November 1, 2017 by DatDarkOne

[Nazrethim]

1 hour ago, DatDarkOne said:

Hehe, that's an example of how stats don't show the whole story. 

Kinda like how the AkMagnus has higher effective dps than the AkLex Prime due to not having the massive recoil.  It's the little things.  :D

Well. In this case, it depends on modding. Modded exclusively for power stats and no bonus ehp Ash is way squishier because his invisibility is much shorter. However, Ash modded for EHP can tank even lvl100 regular grunts and survive shots from Bombards and Snipers, with a sliver of health sure, but still that's way beyond what Loki or Ivara could modded for EHP. This also means that Ash can survive the ocassional stray fire.

But yeah, little things often play a huge part. It's kind of how people laugh at Primed Vigor despite being a very powerful mod, as it's half Redirection and Vitality baked  into a single slot, wonderful for power-based builds that have little space for EHP.

[DatDarkOne]

4 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

But yeah, little things often play a huge part. It's kind of how people laugh at Primed Vigor despite being a very powerful mod, as it's half Redirection and Vitality baked  into a single slot, wonderful for power-based builds that have little space for EHP.

Man I love that mod if for no other reason than it's a two for one.  I use it in builds whenever I can get away with it, and always on new frames or freshly forma'd while ranking them up.  :D

[(PSN)thefallenloser]

2 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

Hehe, that's an example of how stats don't show the whole story. 

Kinda like how the AkMagnus has higher effective dps than the AkLex Prime due to not having the massive recoil.  It's the little things.  :D

And if you aren't building for Cloak and you're building for a one-shot Artemis Bow, yes, Ash has more survivability.

[(PSN)Crixus044]

10 hours ago, Nazrethim said:

By raw stats he does. Ivara and Loki are the squishiest frames while Ash has somewhat tanky stats (in fact, before Inaros released, he had the highest base health pool)

 

Just now, (PS4)ArtPrince17 said:

And if you aren't building for Cloak and you're building for a one-shot Artemis Bow, yes, Ash has more survivability.

Ash has the capability to survive, but Ivara is clearly better and more consistent. Raw stats don't mean much in higher levels. Ivara has infinite invisibility, which means she'd never be hit, and with CL dagger, she has endless damage scaling. Ash can of course  match this with casting speed, fatal teleport CL Dagger, and smoke screen spam or Arcane Trickery (if you have it), which gives him almost exactly the same capabilities, but Ivara has the additional benefit of stealing extra loot, which makes her easily the best solo surviving frame. This ensures that she not only has endless energy (a huge problem of today's ash especially with bladestorm), but that she maintains life support during mob droughts. Ash unfortunately is absent this.

[Nazrethim]

14 minutes ago, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

 

Ash has the capability to survive, but Ivara is clearly better and more consistent. Raw stats don't mean much in higher levels. Ivara has infinite invisibility, which means she'd never be hit, and with CL dagger, she has endless damage scaling. Ash can of course  match this with casting speed, fatal teleport CL Dagger, and smoke screen spam or Arcane Trickery (if you have it), which gives him almost exactly the same capabilities, but Ivara has the additional benefit of stealing extra loot, which makes her easily the best solo surviving frame. This ensures that she not only has endless energy (a huge problem of today's ash especially with bladestorm), but that she maintains life support during mob droughts. Ash unfortunately is absent this.

Ash is apparently made more for hybrid Stealth/Skirmish gameplay, which means he's good for both solo or teamwork. Or he used to be. As a damage dealing frame his job was to make sure everything was dead, but since his only mass slaughter tool (required for a damage dealer in a horde game like Warframe) was overnerfed into single target assassinations at an inflated cost made him unsuitable for teamplay. SShadow, not being affected by range, doesn't help much. Right now his only contribution to a team is not dealing damage, it's stripping armor and ocassionally providing some cover to revive bleeding allies. A single-target assassin simply has no place in Warframe (let's mention the instances when he should work, like Juggernauts and Sentients and assassins, y'know, the actual elite enemies assassins are supposed to specialize in, are nigh inmune or inmune to his attacks). He's a decent Solo frame now and a subpar team frame. He's a wolf with broken teeth.

[(XBOX)Angryspy101]

8 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

(let's mention the instances when he should work, like Juggernauts and Sentients and assassins, y'know, the actual elite enemies assassins are supposed to specialize in, are nigh inmune or inmune to his attacks).

But ash does work against Sentients and Assassins... Bladestorm's finisher damage bypasses Sentients damage resistances so a couple of marks of bladestorm can kill one in just seconds, same with shadow stalker. 

Most Assassins can be killed with FT or just use bladestorm when their shields are down to deal maximum damage. 

Juggernauts are the only thing that ash can't cheese through with his abilities.

[(PSN)Crixus044]

5 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Ash is apparently made more for hybrid Stealth/Skirmish gameplay, which means he's good for both solo or teamwork. Or he used to be. As a damage dealing frame his job was to make sure everything was dead, but since his only mass slaughter tool (required for a damage dealer in a horde game like Warframe) was overnerfed into single target assassinations at an inflated cost made him unsuitable for teamplay. SShadow, not being affected by range, doesn't help much. Right now his only contribution to a team is not dealing damage, it's stripping armor and ocassionally providing some cover to revive bleeding allies. A single-target assassin simply has no place in Warframe (let's mention the instances when he should work, like Juggernauts and Sentients and assassins, y'know, the actual elite enemies assassins are supposed to specialize in, are nigh inmune or inmune to his attacks). He's a decent Solo frame now and a subpar team frame. He's a wolf with broken teeth.

Ash has been broken. This is very true. Certain combo mechanics that allow for high end survival are no excuse for the frame as a whole to be sub-par. I agree, he was a top tier dps frame, but now, he's literally a loner, a job he shouldn't have. Thus, his popularity is almost none. Single target killing can have use in warframe, but only for bosses, high priority field bosses, and assasins, which neither fatal teleport or blade storm are effective on (sentients do take the finisher damage, but at level 100, which is common to find, they have 193k health, which blade storm currently has a hard time dealing with. My favorite use of him, which is smoke shadow, has been trumped by an all-around superior frame, Octavia, who has team buffs, easy team invis without that can be refreshed, and endless scaling AoE damage, which does fall off with armor, but considering it takes under 60 corrosive procs to completely strip a level 7200 heavy gunner (highest enemy you'll be able to see in a 10 hour MoT survival, the current record), I'd say with the right setup (4-5 Pox throws alone with 100 Status and corrosive damage only will do), this is not a problem.

[(XBOX)Angryspy101]

6 minutes ago, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

(sentients do take the finisher damage, but at level 100, which is common to find, they have 193k health, which blade storm currently has a hard time dealing with

I pretty sure Sentients lvls are capped at lvl 30. I did a 1+ hour survival on lua and Sentients will always spawn at lvl 30.

 

9 minutes ago, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

but only for bosses, high priority field bosses, and assasins, which neither fatal teleport or blade storm are effective on

But they are....

 

11 minutes ago, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

but considering it takes under 60 corrosive procs to completely strip a level 7200 heavy gunner (highest enemy you'll be able to see in a 10 hour MoT survival, the current record), I'd say with the right setup (4-5 Pox throws alone with 100 Status and corrosive damage only will do), this is not a problem.

Just bring seeking shuriken and a viral weapon.

[(PSN)Crixus044]

Just now, (Xbox One)Angryspy101 said:

I pretty sure Sentients lvls are capped at lvl 30. I did a 1+ hour survival on lua and Sentients will always spawn at lvl 30.

 

But they are....

 

Just bring seeking shuriken and a viral weapon.

I have fought level 100 conculyst in lua survival with my wukong during sorties, so no they are not capped. During survival, I don't remember if they had a cap. It's been a while lol but sorties spawn them at the mission level.

They are not effective against these bosses. Ivara and Mesa do such a better job against any boss because their damage is through the roof with all their abilities. Ash doesn't even come close. What can ash do against an eidolon for damage? Take down his armor (I don't even know if he can do that)? his armor is 560 at level 20, which actually hurts damage because of how radiation interacts with alloy armor at that level. What can he do against a juggarnaut for damage? Strip his armor too right? This is not what an assassin is for. Assassins kill, they don't debuff. Seeking Shuriken is a team support augment, not to be Ash's primary use. He's suppose to kill. Also, what's funny is that his current way of killing ALSO needs an augment. I know you can do finishers without Fatal Teleport, but the mechanic is far too inconsistent to be viable. This is why I say certain mechanics that make ash able to go far into a survival do not excuse the frame as a whole being sub-par

C'mon he's not a debuffing frame, and I can't believe you're telling me that his only current use for higher levels you can think of needs an augment when I can do the same thing for 5 ammo instead of 25 energy. Also, you missed the point entirely. I brought up corrosive procs for Octavia's sake, not Ash, showing how she surpasses him completely with the right setup. BTW, viral damage is horrible against robotics, which make up the bulk of corpus units and eidolons.

[(XBOX)Angryspy101]

19 minutes ago, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

I brought up corrosive procs for Octavia's sake, not Ash, showing how she surpasses him completely with the right setup.

To be fair comparing any frame to Octavia is cheating since she pushes the limits of "balance".

 

19 minutes ago, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

They are not effective against these bosses

Idk I seen my bladestorm deal up to 6,000 finisher damage a mark with 1,000 slash procs(that's a total of 48,000 finisher damage with just three marks), that's pretty dam effective in terms of fighting sortie bosses.

19 minutes ago, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

I can't believe you're telling me that his only current use for higher levels you can think of needs an augment when I can do the same thing for 5 ammo instead of 25 energy

Actually, your still spending energy 25 energy using Octavia's 1st ability.

 

19 minutes ago, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

This is not what an assassin is for. Assassins kill, they don't debuff.

Any smart assassin would use their tools/arsenal to kill their targets quickly.

 

20 minutes ago, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

viral damage is horrible against robotics, which make up the bulk of corpus units and eidolons.

You know what's not so bad against robotics? Finisher damage and slash procs, two of which ash has plenty of BTW.

The problem here is that your comparing strengths of like 4 different frames with different playstyles to ash just to make him look bad. Not cool man not cool.

[(PSN)Crixus044]

37 minutes ago, (Xbox One)Angryspy101 said:

To be fair comparing any frame to Octavia is cheating since she pushes the limits of "balance".

 

Idk I seen my bladestorm deal up to 6,000 finisher damage a mark with 1,000 slash procs(that's a total of 48,000 finisher damage with just three marks), that's pretty dam effective in terms of fighting sortie bosses.

Actually, your still spending energy 25 energy using Octavia's 1st ability.

 

Any smart assassin would use their tools/arsenal to kill their targets quickly.

 

You know what's not so bad against robotics? Finisher damage and slash procs, two of which ash has plenty of BTW.

The problem here is that your comparing strengths of like 4 different frames with different playstyles to ash just to make him look bad. Not cool man not cool.

Yeah she kinda does lol and again. for 25 energy and 5 ammo, I can kill any group of enemies of any level. For 25 energy and 5 ammo on ash, I'm still in a rut with ash and his ability to kill. Now if I had an ash WITH an octavia, this could work pretty well, but then how does that help ash's case of being a supreme dps frame?

6000 is nothing dude. There's ways to go higher. I personally get around 30k per tick. You'd think that's effective against sortie bosses, until you realize HOW you got there was ineffective. Bladestorm takes too long to get the results, when so many other dps frames and weapons can do even more dps without needing finisher damage. Also, certain bosses ARE resistant to bladestorm (Lech Krill, Lephantis, Sargus Ruk, Juggarnaut, Vay Hek,etc.). Also, if slash damage and finisher damage is your only bigge, then you must love Nox :)

Any smart assassin would have a way to kill the enemy quickly, USING whatever tools they have in their arsenal. Bladestorm use to be ash's way to deal a lot of damage to a crowd, and when it comes to single target take downs, Fatal Teleport kicked in. When it comes to team support, ash could make everyone invisible (he was the only frame to have this ability when the augment first came out) and he could mass strip enemy armor. Due to him dealing finisher damage, stripping armor does nothing for him when it comes to dps, it's just there to make Ash more appealing to teams so that they don't hate his presence. Bladestorm right now is a legit waste of energy because the dps it pumps out takes way to long to do, not to mention that the time it takes to mark a target 3 times, deal the finisher, have your 2 clones do their finishers, and wait for the slash procs to finish their ticks, it's SOOOOO much faster to go 1 by one with a fatal teleport ash, which is slower than other frame's kill speed. So against regular enemies, bladestorm is too slow. Against bosses, it's too slow and inconsistent. Against field bosses, it's too slow and inconsistent.

We've narrowed the problem with blade storm. It's too slow.

It's not just comparing 4 different frames. They're all dps frames, and when it comes to dps, ash is lacking.

Ivara and ash are very similar, because they are both loner-type hunter/assassin frames. Now how does one compare to the other? Ivara wins hands down. Her artemis bow deals much more damage. Her navigator takes this to a whole new level. Her stealth is more consistent and effective. Her ability to perform finishers is faster. Her aggro is decent. Her team support is roughly the same as ash. And her ability to create additional loot is a deadly blow in solo survivals. Only real advantage ash has is the ability to run while invisible.

Edited November 1, 2017 by (PS4)Crixus044

[(PSN)Radehx]

Wait...are we seriously having a discussion about whether Ash is effective at high level content? This is a joke, right? 

Ivara's great for survivals because she gets double loot, making it super easy to keep up life support...and just like Ash, she has great single target damage. She's better at CC, but not much faster in terms of killing stuff that way.

But to claim she outright has a higher kills per second figure is ridiculous. Her Artemis bow is still slower than Ash's seeking shuriken & viral weapon combo in terms of kps. 

I'm not saying she's better or worse, I love Ivara and she's my most-played frame...but to claim she outdamages a properly set up Ash in terms of kps is ridiculous.

Edited November 1, 2017 by (PS4)Radehx

[(PSN)Crixus044]

4 minutes ago, (PS4)Radehx said:

Wait...are we seriously having a discussion about whether Ash is effective at high level content? This is a joke, right? 

No, we're having a discussion on HOW he's effective. He CAN make it to endgame, but it ain't a yellow brick road, while many other frames have versatility in how they are effective, even if it includes augments. Fatal Teleport is honestly really good, but it's slow and monotonous. Seeking Shuriken doesn't help ash as much as it helps allies, which was it's purpose.Two ability that needs an augment doesn't excuse the rest of the frame.

[DatDarkOne]

5 hours ago, (PS4)ArtPrince17 said:

And if you aren't building for Cloak and you're building for a one-shot Artemis Bow, yes, Ash has more survivability.

You don't build for Cloak Arrow.  You build for efficiency and/or you can build for Strength.  I myself have a power/efficiency build Ivara (without any survivibility mods) that will still outlast any other frame in survivals. 

Prowl you don't really have to have a specific build for contrary to what some may think.  Just don't gimp your efficiency.  :D. Funny that efficiency thing works great for BladeStorm too.  Lol

I only commented in this topic to correct the statement of Ash out surviving Ivara.  Ash can't as long as the Ivara player in the comparison is fairly competent.  Ash can take more hits than her if you don't count the high level One shot kills.  

One fine Tenno did suggest that BS be like the ability in Nier: Automata.  That would be awesome if DE did this.  Koga skin Ash is still one of my top 4 favorite frames.  

Note: I'm not counting Quick Thinking as I view QT as a waste of a good mod slot.  :D