Zephyr Improvements

[-Bv-Qrow_the_Hokage]

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My ideas for for improving Zephyr while maintaining her current abilities since DE has basically already stated they aren't giving any more frames a full rework like Limbo got, which wasn't even a full rework. My goal for this is for Zephyr to have high mobility and moderate CC, while using her lighter CC abilities to 'herd' enemies to her stronger CC, Tornado. I haven't really worked out exact numbers as of yet, but what I have is to give a general idea. 

If only one number is given without it explicitly stating that it applies to all ranks, assume that is the number for max rank only. 

Passive: Lightweight

Zephyr has reduced gravity and increased air mobility and aim glide time. Air mobility is increased relative to its present state. Zephyr never loses her reduced gravity. 

Tailwind:

Zephyr dashes with wind following her. Dash works the same way it currently does. Enemies caught in her path are dragged along with her and become 'airborne'. This airborne status goes away after an enemy is on the ground and not being affected by Tailwind for 1 second. The airborne status allows them to be pulled by Tailwind from a greater distance away. During this period, Zephyr is immune to all damage and cc. Zephyr will still set alarms off when she passes through lasers, and get magentic proc on hitting grineer doors. 

Each  quick successive cast of Tailwind reduced the cost of the ability. This reduction is 1/2, then 1/4. It does not reduce any further. 

Tailwind has the lowest priority of effect on airborne enemies. 

Divebomb:

Upon quick cast, Zephyr dives straight down, pulling any enemy airborne units with her, and knocking down grounded enemies. Airborne enemies take increased damage. Damage and knockdown range increases with height which the ability is casted. When the ability button is held down, she will tempoarily float and she can aim at a target location in a conal region staring off of Zephyr. Conal region is a 70 degree cone at all ranks. This means the total angle width from Zephyr is 70 degrees, 35 degrees in each direction.  

Base knockdown radius is 9 m affectable by range mods. Airborne pull range is 11 m affectable by range mods. 

Damage scales by: Total Damage = (.7 * Distance in Air * Power strength * Base Damage) with a cap at 35m. Base damage for ability is affected by mods. Airborne enemies take 10% max health finisher damage affected by mods.

Knockdown range increase scales by: Total Range = (.3 * Activation Height * Range + Base Range * Range). Airbornepull range is affected by this same calculation, calculated by computer beforehand from what air to ground distance is. It uses the distance to where Zephyr will land, not from directly where she is relative to the ground. 

Airborne enemies will immediately lose airborne status upon colliding with the ground as a result of divebomb.

Zephyr immediately regains mobility upon contacting the ground. 

Divebomb has highest priority of effect on airborne enemies.

Augment works exactly the same. Enemies ragdolled by augment will not become airborne. 

 

Turbulence:

Mostly the same. Zephyr creates a wind shield that protects her from incoming projectiles by redirecting them. Bombard rockets will additionaly lose their targetting on Zephyr. 

Augment works exactly the same.

 

Tornado:

Zephyr creates multiple deadly tornados. 

Tornados spawn in a fixed 25m range that applies to all ranks. Tornados can travel outside this radius however after being summoned. If possible, they will spawn on enemies. Tornados will pull enemies within 5 m of their radius, affectable by range mods. This cannot go below 3m. When enemies hit fixed 2m from the center of the tornado, they are sucked in and become ragdolled. Enemies are held in tornado for 15 seconds (affectable by mods, min 10 seconds) and gain an airborne status. Airborne enemies have fixed 2x increased pull range, and 3x increased ragdoll range. After this ends, they will be thrown out.

Projectiles that enter a tornado are pulled by the tornado and will hit enemies that are inside. Their damage is reduced to a fixed .5 of their original value. The amount of enemies it hits follows punchthrough mechanics.

Enemies that are thrown out will not be immediately pulled back into the tornado they came from, but can be immediately pulled by other tornados. 

Damage procs at 4 Ticks per second. Status chance per tick is 15%. Status mechanics and priority are the same. 

Tornados will minorly avoid one another (to prevent them from stackng on themselves). Recasting the ability while it is already active will reset the ability. Holding the ability will end it early. 

Augment increases number of tornados by 2-4-6-8. Enemies will no longer be ragdolled. Enemies in range are slowed to fixed 60%. Status per tick is increased to 100%. Pull range is reduced by 1/3, with mininum range of 3m. Enemies can escape the tornado if in a group with enemies going different directions, but tornado will follow them the best it can. Enemies will not gain airborne status. Lose airborne bonuses. 

 

Goals:

The goals for this 'rework' are for Zephyr to become a mobile herding agent. Using her 1, she will be able to herd enemies to where she desires. All her abilities essentially work as they previously have, with the exception of Tornado becoming much more useful. 

Her 1 is for herding enemies to her stronger cc abilities as well as mobility. The increased range of effect on 'airborne' units is mainly to act as a QoL so it isn't as hard to aim enemies where you want to pull them. The energy cost reduction is to incentize using it for CC so you won't run out of energy, or still have energy for other abilities. 

Her two's augment gains the additional use of being able to pull a group of spread enemies into a tight circle, and then using Tailwind to transport them to another area. Note that abilities such as Vauban's bastille will take priority of Zephyr's pull, which means you can pull enemies into his bastille. The reason for increasing the scaling of her 2 is that as of right now, it really can only shine on certain open maps and Plains of Eidolon. The massive scaling increase was needed to make it more worth using beyond a slightly better melee ground pound.

Her 2 does have the ability to pull enemies out of tornados, but to prevent spamming, there is a 2 second cooldown on being pulled back into the same tornado. 

The change of 3 is just a QoL change. It won't really heavily affect gameplay since in most cases the deflected rocket will collide with ground or a wall. 

Her 4 now has two ways to be used depending on whether or not you're using the augment. 

Without the augment, it acts as a moderate CC to hold enemies. It also can act as a shield from enemy fire beyond the tornado, though you also can't hit them. It then can also be used to set up damage for her 2. 

The purpose of her augmented tornaodo is to change it from CC to an aoe shield area as well as a mass status proccing aoe.

Edited January 10, 2018 by -Bv-Qrow_Wraith
Math updates

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

This is a good rework. 

I do think that some features can be expanded upon however.

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

Hmm, let's take a look at this. Number 611 in my count!

Passive; good. Might need more particulars as to which precise movement you want to improve, such as 'longer aim glide' or 'aim glide temporarily stops you falling', or even just 'even better steering'.

Tailwind; Ah, another person who's a fan of the Airborne Enemies mechanic. It's a fun system, but not exploitable in about 50% of the game as it is now, may work better after the majority of the game gains Open World areas like the Plains (which is apparently the Grand Plan). It works for CC, and also combos in well with Dive Bomb, which improves both abilities significantly. I think you'll find that you'd still need the animation-unlock that I pitched in my thread to really make this work, but it's a solid implementation of the idea, and wouldn't be too hard to adapt to.

Dive Bomb; similar to the above, you may need a few adjustments. Let me check your maths for a second; Range of knockdown, for a base range activation at 10m away would be... hmm, that can't be right... (0.2 * 10 + 7 * 7) = (2 + 49) = 52. A little extreme. Unless you meant that final point to be '* range multiplier' which would be (0.2 * 10 + 7 * 1) = 9 which is a little lacking.

Although with range modification, like a Stretch, that would become (0.2 * 14.5 + 7 * 1.45) = (2.9 + 10.15) = 13.05... Which, when it gets down to it, is about the same as we have now, and less for anything under 10m. With the current modding you can get 10-14m just from hopping into the air first. Remember that many people will still use this strategy if they've been playing Zephyr for a while.

On the other hand, it gets kind of silly if you start adding it all together. With the 35º angle to the height... Let's say you Tailwind to 30m and aim at the limit of the 35º cone, that's a nice little bit of maths, the equation would change to (0.2*36.6 + 7 * 1.45) = (7.32 + 10.15) = 17.47... Ah... yeah, like I said, a little silly that out of an extra 26m distance travelled you're only getting around 7m of radius. I mean, sure there's considerations to be made about not making it OP scaling, but for the added effort there's not a lot of incentive.

Of course, if you max the Range to get better scaling, you'll nerf the Strength, so... trade-offs are interesting.

Conditional range scaling is good, but remember that the scaling is either going to be non-existent, or max out around the 30-40m range, there aren't many in-between states when you're planning to use DB.

Tornado; hmm, a mixed bag here, you've solved a couple of the issues with the ability, but not all, and tried to compensate for those others you haven't solved by adding in the Airborne mechanics and the equivalent of Bullet Attractor on the funnels themselves (absorbs the single instance of damage to be dealt to the enemies within and does not permanently increase the damage of the funnel).

I mean, fair enough, if the situation of the game will support the Airborne mechanics, this wouldn't be all that bad. On the other hand, leaving the elemental type adjustment as it currently is would be a bit of a mistake. So... I'm not sure which way to go on this.

tl;dr

Not bad. For a first pass on this, there's still improvements you could make, and it currently relies on a mechanic that, in my opinion, will not function as intended in the current game. But I'd give you at least a B grade on it. Nothing ground breaking, but also nothing glaringly flawed.

[-Bv-Qrow_the_Hokage]

1 hour ago, Thaylien said:

Hmm, let's take a look at this. Number 611 in my count!

 

I probably should've put my updated numbers after I had done some math like you when I was looking at it again and noticed the range issues you brought up. Forgot to do that. My apologies.

I would argue that the airbourne mechanic could work because after using a tailwind, there is still a one second grace period for you to recast to continue to pull enemies. As I said in the thread, the increase pull range on all three abilities interacting with it is to help alleviate some of the problems you would otherwise face.. The idea is to pull a group of enemies through a hallway/something similar into your tornado. (Then again, I may be blinding myself a with a little bias )

You do make a good point of animation in regards to tailwind trying to pull them around. I didn't think of the animation unlock, and that would really improve it. 

The idea for divebomb was balancing between being able to do damage and doing CC. Since it is doing finisher damage to enemies (that are airborne, including those in tornado), I don't want either part to be to strong. When Zephyr divebombs, due to current range calculations (sorry for not having those before), this would have a reasonable chance of encompassing all tornados, letting her deal reasonable finisher damage to groups of enemies (maybe). 

Range = .3 * Activation Height * Range Mods + Base * Range mods, assuming 15m activation height, and 145% range,

Range = .3 * 15 * 1.45 + 9 * 1.45 = 19.5m 

Sorry for not having the updated numbers, but I have a question. To my knowledge, Zephyr's divebomb range doesn't scale with height. So where did you get the numbers that my system would be able to be less? Theoretically, it would be impossible. Zephyr's current base range is 7m, and my system had the height adder on top of that. Unless you meant less different...

Can you expand a bit more on Tornado improvements if you don't mind. All the ideas I can get (other than Zephyr flying and being a bird) I'm welcome to hearing. I made Tornado into somewhat of a strong CC. It has a 15 second enemy lockdown that can be increased, and enemies can be herded into it. This is set up for divebomb to bring out its finisher damage.

All these numbers are subject to tweaks, this is the rough draft and any criticism helps to imrpove it. Thanks! 

Edited January 10, 2018 by -Bv-Qrow_Wraith
added some numbers and maths

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, -Bv-Qrow_Wraith said:

So where did you get the numbers that my system would be able to be less?

Ah, no, this was alluding to the point that, with the new scaling, there were points on the graph of your pre-update numbers that would have simply been worse off than our current modding allows for at any height.

So currently you can get a max modded range of 19.6m (thanks to a new Range mod from the Plains), and without any negative detriments from Overextended you can still get 13.3m. When you take that into account that this range of CC is available to an updated regular Dive Bomb (where you make the CC reliable) from even as low as 1m, then the scaling might not be as desirable.

[-Bv-Qrow_the_Hokage]

Well, there are two sources of scaling. Scaling that directly affects the base amount, and then the bonus amount from height. Sorry if I didn't explain this well. 

So lets say base range is 7, and you have 145% range. You are guarenteed that amount it would give you, 7*1.45. So this 10.15m. You would then get even more range based off how high in the air you were. So 15m (Gonna use new scaling multiplier of .3 instead of .2) would give 15*.3*1.45 adding 6.5m for a total of 16.6m. Just so you know, I increased the base amount at the final level to 9m in my revisions, so after that you would get 19.5m. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, -Bv-Qrow_Wraith said:

Well, there are two sources of scaling. Scaling that directly affects the base amount, and then the bonus amount from height. Sorry if I didn't explain this well. 

Ah, so the most balanced way you would phrase that mathematically, if I were DE trying to change this so it would tread that fine line between not good enough and too good, would be:

Effective Range = (Range x Range Modifier) + (0.3 x Height x Range Modifier)

This would mean at a base of 7m jumping up to 10m, you would have 7 + (0.3 x 10 x 1.45) = 7 + 4.35 = 11.35. Or at a height of 30m you would have 20.05m (a decent reward for that height, which is a good Tailwind launch. At max range, which would be 19.6m, and a height of 10m you would get 19.6 + (0.3 x 10 x 2.8) = 19.6 + 8.4 = 28m. Actually not a bad CC ability there, but what about higher? At 30m you get to 44.8m, which is definitely respectable, and if the CC knock down were guaranteed... yeah, that'd be a very powerful CC ability and well worth the Launch and Dive costs.

Not bad, quite a good idea overall.

Although... I can't help but think that something simpler might be applicable like 'add 3m to the base range'. Meaning base is 10m, max range is then 28m, and with my own preferred  build for Jet Stream I'd still get a decent 17m out of it, which is more than we used to get without Augur Reach... that happens from any height, but you have better movement with the improved Tailwind and Aim Glide... with the ability to aim it as well... Pretty decent. Then you could focus on putting the Damage scaling up a bit, so that you just add on a secondary multiplier, maybe just a squaring function of the original damage calculation... And you'd have a reliable, normal-to-low area CC Stun ability that can also do damage that lasts beyond level 30, instead of the pittance it deals now.

Sometimes the complex buffs are more effective, sometimes the simple ones will do just as well in the circumstances.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Thaylien

[Sasuda]

I'm super satisfied with this and the direction it takes. Personally I think it's my favorite one, well balanced.
Take a look at @Thaylien's Tornado here https://forums.warframe.com/topic/758324-zephyr-should-be-good-a-fix-thread-edit-7th-september/, and see what you think. To be honest I think @-Bv-Qrow_Wraith 's is a better balanced approach just missing some of the little in between details like numbers. Thaylien does work out a lot of nice specific details addressing little things well like taking note of ground divebombing and shooting through tornadoes. He also had some really cool creative ideas. VFX on tornadoes could have a tad more see through I think.
One of the big points with tornadoes is their pathing, cancel-casting, and speed. Even with the good suggestions, you added they still can end up doing less than what they should. Spamming or leaving Tornadoes stuck somewhere aren't the greatest.

 

[-Bv-Qrow_the_Hokage]

@Sasuda You make me blush. 

I'm open to making changes to some Tornado mechanics. I honestly haven't really looked into @Thayliens thread that much. I'm going to take a look now.

For divebomb, while it may be a bit more complex, I don't want a flat buff for the range. I want people to be invested into getting that extra height. I'm also not to concerned about normal damage of divebomb, because for this rework I want people to bring out its %Max Health finisher damage from airborne. This would at later levels do more damage than your suggestion, because of armor scaling. My vision for Zephyr is to be closer a CC frame than a damage one, though she still has that. She has 3 abilities that under current status are decent-stongish CC. 

Tailwinds pulls enemies into the cast direction and Zephyr in invulnerable to damage and most status effects (including toxin) while being used. Divebomb has the potential to be a semi-spammable mass AOE knockdown, and tornado is a long lasting CC lock where you just shoot the tornado itself to kill things within. The reason I went with bullets affeting Tornado enemies is so that players don't have to bother aiming at a fast moving target. You lose your ability to hit enemies behind tornado, but they also can't hit you. A modable 15 second duration would make it one of the longest lasting 'stuns' in the game. This was so you can have time to group up enemies for airborne divebomb. Sure numbers might be adusted, but I really put the focus on the CC while having the option to set up for divebomb.

At the cost of CC, divebomb can do damage. Enemies are now no longer airborne, and are pulled and immune from (for a couple seconds from the one they came from) tornados.