Unairu - Void Spines

[ShogunGunshow]

Can we please get something that's not a pile of doodoo for the first unlock in the tree, please? Reflection is trash, and has been ever since it was introduced as a mechanic, and I have trouble believing that you the developers don't understand why.

To recap:

Naramon - Melee kills grant more affinity. Useful at all levels.

Zenurik - More energy from pickups. Useful at all levels.

Vazarin - More affinity radius. Not that great, but in niche cases can have a use.

Madurai - Increased physical damage. Moderately useful at all levels as long as you have something that deals physical damage.

Unairu - Deal 25% of damage taken back to attacker. Struggles to kill even sub-level 10 enemies (which will melt by just looking at them by the point you get this node anyway), requires you to take damage to work, and scales inversely to the scaling of enemies as their effective health skyrockets far faster than their damage.

Can't this node be something like a flat armor increase, giving squishy frames a way to increase their survivability dramatically? Or an absorption effect that prevents the damage it returns, effectively acting as a 25% damage reduction buff? Because Reflection is awful.

[InDueTime-EN-]

I would say that DE doesn't seem to understand the difference between the damage the enemy deals and how much damage they can take. 

I still think return damage would be good, but considering the large EHP of enemies compared to their DPS, this value needs to be changed to be more than 100%. 

This goes the same for that useless melee mod. 

Edited November 1, 2017 by InDueTime-EN-

[Jin_Kazama]

Tbh im yet to test how this stacks with Shatter Shield

[shut]

Void Spines made me wonder if any of the devs play high-leveled missions in Warframe.

With "make Unairu viable!" being such a hyped feature of Focus 2.0, it's baffling that the first thing they do is add freaking damage reflection. Not even redirecting a fraction of the damage, no. Receiving all of the damage, and sending a tiny fraction of it back at the enemy.

 

There are literally zero builds in which a maxed Void Spines is useful.

[ShogunGunshow]

4 minutes ago, InDueTime-EN- said:

I would say that DE doesn't seem to understand the difference between the damage the enemy deals and how much damage they can take. 

I still think return damage would be good, but considering the large EHP of enemies compared to their DPS, this value needs to be changed to be more than 100%. 

This goes the same for that useless melee mod. 

The only way I could ever see Reflection being a thing is if, as you say, the numbers were dramatically increased, and if it did Finisher damage, ignoring armor completely.

[MJ12]

37 minutes ago, SortaRandom said:

Void Spines made me wonder if any of the devs play high-leveled missions in Warframe.

With "make Unairu viable!" being such a hyped feature of Focus 2.0, it's baffling that the first thing they do is add freaking damage reflection. Not even redirecting a fraction of the damage, no. Receiving all of the damage, and sending a tiny fraction of it back at the enemy.

 

There are literally zero builds in which a maxed Void Spines is useful.

Not even high level missions. Even a Lv1 Grineer Lancer will take forever to kill themselves with reflected damage, as they do like, what, 3 damage a hit, before armor, and have 100 health?

I suggested a while back that DE multiply Warframe health and shields by x5, multiply enemy damage by x5, and adjust effects which relate to health numbers (e.g. Rage/QT/healing) to make up for it. This would go a long way into making reflected damage actually relevant instead of just a glorified tool to show you the position of enemies shooting at you. So for example, a health orb would heal 125 health now. Rage would translate 8% of damage taken to energy instead of 40% (2% per level). Quick Thinking would max out at 1200% efficiency (1 point of energy stops 12 points of damage). These aren't a nerf/buff because you'll be taking 5x damage anyhow and therefore the net gain/loss of energy per shot is exactly the same.

If a basic Warframe has 500 health/500 shields, and an enemy has 100 health and does 10 damage (2 damage pre-change), reflect now matters. At 100% reflection, an enemy will kill themselves in 10 shots instead of 50. Stuff like Shatter Shield will have more use than just DR. I'm not sure why this change was never made, because it would make damage reflection actually relevant at some points while not causing any other imbalances.

Edited November 1, 2017 by MJ12

[Xzorn]

Well, that would hardly be the only scaling failure of Unairu.

Take Crippling Dash or Sundering Dash for example.

Reducing at enemy's armor by 75% when you actually need that armor strip isn't going to help much. A lvl 100 Napalm's armor reduced by 75% is still 89% Damage reduction and when it comes to reducing enemy damage scaling, 10% of one-shot is still one-shot.  Who would do that anyways? Jump out of your Operator to reduce a few enemy's damage instead of just shooting them quicker. I understand if it's like Equinox's aura but... ugh, just makes no sense.

But at least Unairu has a useful active, being Void Shadow. Madurai has no useful actives at all and +%Physical damage is a bad thing in majority of cases. So like Unairu Madurai has one good passive.

[Professional_Fart]

When it comes to Void Spines, damage resistance does not influence the pitiful damage that is returned to enemies. Only the strength of the incoming attack and their armor. However rather than bandaid it with a massive %, how about changing what happens when you're hit?

Void Tremors (Renamed and reworked from Void Spines)
Taking damage will deal X damage a sec in a X meter radius for X seconds. (Basically a discount World on Fire)
Occasionally flinches enemies where applicable (for the earthly theme).
Duration refreshes with every hit taken.
Damage ignores armor.
Visual effect of stones moving around the affected enemies' legs.

Another thing I've noticed about Void Spines and pretty much anything that functions under the "when damaged" circumstance (melee block resistance, Vaykor Syandana flare, Vaykor Sydon blind charging, damage build up with Avenging Truth augment, etc), is that they only activate when you take health or shield damage. Health buffers such as Iron Skin, Warding Halo, and Icy Avalanche to name a handful or invincible states are excluded from this circumstance but damage resistance isn't as long as you're losing health or shields.