Yet again DE manages to completely miss the mark on Volt.

[ADirtyMonk]

And I quote direct from the Market: "This is a high damage warframe perfect for players who want a potent alternative to gunplay"

There are 2 alternatives to gunplay. Abilities and melee. Volt cannot do either very well. Volt's abilities may as well not have a damage component past lv 30 enemies. Melee does enough damage and thus has some potential but Volt is too squishy past lv 70 enemies to be in close range and he has no damage mitigation. Furthermore his kit is full of odd contradictions.

This post emphasizes the melee aspects of volt. There are many Warframes that cater to gunplay and/or abilities far better than Volt does. Players looking for gunplay should not be looking to Volt.

My credentials: 2199 hours on the in game clock, Volt and Volt prime have a combined usage of 28.7% with the next highest as Chroma at 11%, MR24.

The thing that Volt offers that no other frame does is the Speed ability. No other warframe can boost movement speed AND melee speed at the same time to the same extent that Volt can. Combined with high power strength makes for an incredibly fun experience. Volt should be built around Speed with an emphasis as a melee caster yet currently a significant part of his kit punishes attacking/moving or forces Volt to stay still and that is an enormous design failure that the Design Lead has failed to address again and again.

Issues:

1.      Contradictory/poorly designed kit. Tries to do everything, does nothing.

2.      Too fragile to be end game (vs Lv 100) viable.

Kit: I wont throw around too many numbers. These are my opinions from 600ish hours on volt and having tried to take a melee volt into lv 80-100 content again and again for dozens of hours over many different builds alongside about an hour worth of very basic testing in simulacrum

Passive: Volt's passive may as well not exist (Except when it’s used for fishing, then it’s awesome). I do not recall whether or not it adds after calculations or to base damage but it is ultimately irrelevant. Getting that 1000 damage takes 10-15s (Tested on a 384% power strength build, sprinting, in Simulacrum) of doing NOTHING but running around. You cant shoot, you cant melee, NOTHING. Worse, even if you do decide to charge it, you can miss with the charged attack. So in reality you don’t even get 1000 damage, you get a very small fraction of that damage if anything at all.

Shock:

1.      Weak damage, no scaling. 384% power strength strikes a normal lv 80 heavy gunner for 44 damage, lv 80 lancer for 159. Both these enemies are both relatively common and of middling level for sortie/flood content. There are far tankier/more damaging enemies which Volt performs significantly worse against.

2.      Cast is too slow. Volt is fast and squishy. If I turn a corner into a napalm or hyekka master I need those units stunned Immediately. Current cast speed means that some % of the time the napalm/hyekka manages to fire anyway and I die because I cannot avoid the projectile at point blank.

3.      often fails to interrupt big attacks (napalms, bombards, etc)

4.      Needs to be aimed very precisely at enemies otherwise it wont hit. Precise aiming becomes very difficult to do the faster you go. This also effectively makes the augment useless.

5.      Cost of 25 energy is too high for a brief 5 enemy stun.

6.      This ability needs power strength, efficiency, and range to be effective. Range is a dump stat for a melee volt. Meaning this ability is effectively a single target stun.

Speed:

1.      Base duration is too low. My builds hover between 150 and ~200% duration giving me 15 and 20s respectively. Having to constantly refresh the ability is fatiguing.

Electric shield: This ability is completely contradictory to Volt’s kit and stated purpose.

1.      Warframe is a fast paced mobile shooter, Volt is a frame emphasizing movement. This ability forces Volt and teammates to stand still to use it.

2.      Amps bullets shot through shield. Volt is supposed to be an alternative to gunplay yet here is an ability that emphasizes standing still and shooting enemies.

3.      Very small coverage. Especially on PoE the shield is laughably small. Volt will never be Frost and I don’t want volt to ever be a defense oriented frame but at least give me a half sphere of protection that I dont have to cast 3 very expensive shields for that dont even last forever.

Riot shield.

1.      Cost: energy to cast, energy cost to carry, affected by duration. If energy were money and EA was the designer this is what I would expect to happen. No other ability in warframe nickle and dimes the player like this for so little return

2.      Tiny coverage: only covers the front of the warframe. AOE attacks most lethal to volt (rockets, flamethrowers, Toxic ancient spray) tend to ignore the shield if you are not perfectly aligned. Often in game and especially in PoE you are getting shot from all sides.

3.      Automatically dropped on entering operator mode: This ability punishes trying to use virtually every one of the few positives about Operator combat (void dash, Energizing Dash, Magus Elevate) by making you stop and pick up the shield after each time you swap out.

Discharge

1.      Long cast time

2.      Locks Volt in place during cast

3.      No invulnerability during cast

4.      Damage cap

5.      Delayed damage

6.      Requires power range which is a dump stat

7.      Tiny damage. 384% strength build does 80 and 292 damage/tick to a lv 80 heavy gunner and lancer respectively

 

Fragility: Volt is extremely fragile. At lv 90 enemies every Melee Volt build I have tried (one of which combined Primed flow, Quick thinking, Vitality, Steel Fiber, and Rage) will inevitably and with frustrating frequency, be destroyed in 1-2 seconds or just outright one shot. Volts contradictory kit leaves him with defensive options that leave him either immobile or are punishingly costly. Defensive options that do not work much of the time, are insufficiently powerful, or are severely inhibited if one decides to play Volt has he is marketed.

Contrast this to Mesa where near instant unavoidable death almost never occurs since despite being theoretically fragile and constantly transitioning into an immobile turret she has the following:

1.An easily achieved long duration 95% damage reduction that applies to shields

2. An automatic continuous 360 degree long ranged CC that travels with her

3. Peacemaker which outputs better damage at a safer range than any Volt can

 

Suggestions:

Given DE’s allergy to expending significant effort to reworking and improving old frames I’ll keep these “realistic” suggestions simple.

Passive: Copy and paste Arc Coil from Diriga. Increase status chance to 50%

Shock: Copy and paste Desiccation from Inaros. Reskin with electric particles.

Speed: Base cost to 30. Base duration to 15s.

Electric Shield: Copy and paste Shatter Shield from Mesa.

Discharge: Copy and paste MPrime. Reskin with electric particles.

Ideally I would like:

Passive 1: Sprinting/parkour builds damage reduction over 1500m up to a max of 95% rapidly decaying over 5s if Volt stops. Moving again will resume increasing damage reduction.

Passive 2: Sprinting builds up charge over distance covered, 50m for 100 charge, max of 100 charge. Charge behaves like Mutation stacks except they are expended with ability casts. All of volt’s abilities scales with Charge

Shock: A Desiccation like ability that scales with melee mods and Charge. Minimum range 15m

Speed: Base cost to 30. Base duration to 15s. Also scales parkour stats. Innate shocking speed. Scales with Charge.

Electric Shield: One handed ability, casting does not affect movement. Running through the shield confers flat armor (similar to Renewal) to allies for the duration of the ability. Hold down to supercharge with additional %electric damage/crit damage. Both additional armor and damage scale with charge. All bonuses will immediately apply to Volt on cast.

Discharge: Essentially Virulence that is cast and expands like MPrime.

 

On a more sour note I just want to point out how demotivating DE is to players who give feedback on Warframe. I have seen, both on the Forums and the Warframe Subreddit incredibly insightful, well thought out, pages long suggestions and improvements posted by players/founders/veterans who love the topic and Warframe enough to the point of spending hours of time testing, creating artwork, and UI mockups be ignored over and over by the Game design team who instead implement changes that demonstrate immense laziness/ignorance of their own game and worse willfull ignorance of the players many of whom are actively paying to test the game. Volt is just one topic. The current discussions about how contradictory and poorly scaling his kit is were present a year and a half ago with his last rework and were promptly ignored until DE felt the need to sell a new Volt skin. Focus is major issue that has long been ignored and continues to experience meaningless changes and near silence from the team despite reassurances a month ago there would be something more after 2 years of nothing. More recent issues with Cetus bounties displaying next to no sense of equivalent time vs reward (credit caches of a few hundred credits, 100-300 kuva that dont scale with boosters, equating 1 wisp with the same value as 1 eidolon gem in Plague star). There are a lot more examples that I dont feel like digging out again.

 

Thanks for reading.

Fashion Tax

Edited December 1, 2017 by ADirtyMonk

[Vafthrudnir]

25 minutes ago, ADirtyMonk said:

No other warframe can boost movement speed AND melee speed at the same time to the same extent that Volt can.

Valkyr? And gives armor.

Edited December 1, 2017 by giovanniluca

[DirePresent]

Just now, giovanniluca said:

Valkyr? And gives armor.

Valkyr is just attacking speed, not running speed.

[jofdeath]

talk about wall of text.

for shock its base is relitivly gives enough stun to cast other abilitys like discharge, if anything allow duration to increase stun. as for damage, this is a 1 ability it has more cc usefulness even if you were to 5x the damage.

speed, ya i agree just needs a small base increase

shield, i actually like the place it is now

discharge with the augment make volt cc and actually can live in higher situations.

iver all ive bin using volt with high str and duration at 50 efficincy and a i spam all day with ccing and living everything

[Krion112]

Volt's description is outdated, and it has been for a really long time. His abilities seem more geared towards defensive mechanics, like aggression deterrent, being quick to avoid enemies, having a great number of stunning effects, and his shield ability both absorbing the full damage of attacks and being able to be used to knock-down enemies, impairing them.

In fact, the only factors that disagree with that is the description, his passive conjuring more damage, Speed increasing Melee Speed, and his Shield amplifying electrical damage, but those could be oversights or deliberate deviations to create interesting effect.

If Excalibur is the Jack-of-all-Trades of Offense, and Mag is the Jack-of-all-Trades of Support, Volt is the Jack-of-all-Trades of Defense. If that philosophy is true, then I can't say I agree with the mechanics expressed by the OP.

Edited December 1, 2017 by Krion112

[Ritzierphoenix]

8 minutes ago, Alangme said:

Valkyr is just attacking speed, not running speed.

She provides bonus movement speed, but at a lower rate than Volt. With a 250~% build it's noticable, but not by much.

 

[Azrael]

36 minutes ago, ADirtyMonk said:

design team who instead implement changes that demonstrate immense laziness/ignorance of their own game and worse willfull ignorance of the players

 

36 minutes ago, ADirtyMonk said:

The current discussions -snip- were promptly ignored until DE felt the need to sell a new Volt skin.

I'll agree there are some contradictions in his kit, and I'm not a Volt main so I can't really comment too much. But I know that many people really like Volt, and in particular his shield and Discharge abilities are useful in many situations. It's okay if not all of his kit caters to a single specific build. But suggesting that their reluctance to implement your favorite scheme is laziness or ignorance is ridiculous and unnecessary. If the devs felt that his kit was okay and disagreed with your position, that doesn't mean they don't know anything about the game or don't care. Further suggesting that any reworks are solely so DE can sell some skins is reading excessive cynicism into a company that is consistently and significantly better about p2w and aggressive monetization than most other companies. DE is not EA, they don't act like EA, Warframe is a far cry from the cynical money-grubbing we see in Battlefront. I find it hard to take your feedback seriously or respect your position with such unnecessary hostility in it.

 

Edit: Also it's frankly silly to judge his entire kit according to some years-old flavor text. If anything we should be asking for a new description.

Edited December 1, 2017 by Azrael

[ADirtyMonk]

18 hours ago, giovanniluca said:

Valkyr? And gives armor.

Melee speed and armor only. Not movement speed.

18 hours ago, jofdeath said:

talk about wall of text.

for shock its base is relitivly gives enough stun to cast other abilitys like discharge, if anything allow duration to increase stun. as for damage, this is a 1 ability it has more cc usefulness even if you were to 5x the damage.

speed, ya i agree just needs a small base increase

shield, i actually like the place it is now

discharge with the augment make volt cc and actually can live in higher situations.

iver all ive bin using volt with high str and duration at 50 efficincy and a i spam all day with ccing and living everything

I'm not sure you even read my post. I specifically mention how Strength builds gimp range unless you're not actually running a high duration build. Having to cast one ability that is essentially a tiny AOE CC to give yourself breathing room to cast what is basically more CC is called a dependency not synergy. It's bad design and also hilariously underpowered compared to other warframes. Loki/mesa/chroma/inaros/nidus and a lot of other top tier frames dont have to cast one ability to cast another and they benefits of their abilities are much more potent than volt's whether it is CC or damage.

 

I get that you like shield. That's great. A static shield is also completely contradictory to the rest of volt's kit and Riot shield is unecessarily punishing for no good reason and not even reliable defense.

 

 I'm also going to call bullS#&$ on "spamming all day". 45% efficiency puts Shock and speed at 39 energy/cast. Shield at 78. Discharge at 155. That is absolutely unsustainable unless you are running some combo of rage/adrenaline + energizing dash + arcane energize.

18 hours ago, Krion112 said:

Volt's description is outdated, and it has been for a really long time. His abilities seem more geared towards defensive mechanics, like aggression deterrent, being quick to avoid enemies, having a great number of stunning effects, and his shield ability both absorbing the full damage of attacks and being able to be used to knock-down enemies, impairing them.

In fact, the only factors that disagree with that is the description, his passive conjuring more damage, Speed increasing Melee Speed, and his Shield amplifying electrical damage, but those could be oversights or deliberate deviations to create interesting effect.

If Excalibur is the Jack-of-all-Trades of Offense, and Mag is the Jack-of-all-Trades of Support, Volt is the Jack-of-all-Trades of Defense. If that philosophy is true, then I can't say I agree with the mechanics expressed by the OP.

If the official material from DE cannot be trusted to reflect the product then what are players supposed to base their judgement off of? The wiki?

"Avoiding" enemies in warframe doesnt work for half the mission types, for the other its killing enemies that are the vast majority of affinity the mission gives. Also a lot of enemies are hitscan which by definition cannot be avoided. A lot of AOE has no AOE indicator and thus essentially cannot be avoided. There is no "dodge" or "evade" stat that arbitrarily makes hits into misses to compensate either.

The infinite damage absorption of the shield is one of its few benefits. It also only blocks one direction, costs a lot to cast, and is on a timer. Riot shield needs to be perfectly aligned to absorb AOE. Also the shield doesnt knockdown. Slam attacks knockdown. The shield Ragdolls which is the worst form of CC since it randomly sends enemies flying to places which forces the player to run after them or have to track them individually. There is a reason why Zephyr's ult is so S#&$ and Hydroid ult had to be changed to not flail all over the place.

None of the starters are jack of all trades anything and none perform all that great in lv 90+ missions either. Volt has been discussed, mag is a bad joke. Excal is maybe the only exception because exalted blade outputs so much damage and even his lack of reliable damage reduction hurts his usability a lot. Just because starter frames are starters doesnt mean they should stop being effective after passing 3/4 of the enemy level range.

17 hours ago, Azrael said:

 

I'll agree there are some contradictions in his kit, and I'm not a Volt main so I can't really comment too much. But I know that many people really like Volt, and in particular his shield and Discharge abilities are useful in many situations. It's okay if not all of his kit caters to a single specific build. But suggesting that their reluctance to implement your favorite scheme is laziness or ignorance is ridiculous and unnecessary. If the devs felt that his kit was okay and disagreed with your position, that doesn't mean they don't know anything about the game or don't care. Further suggesting that any reworks are solely so DE can sell some skins is reading excessive cynicism into a company that is consistently and significantly better about p2w and aggressive monetization than most other companies. DE is not EA, they don't act like EA, Warframe is a far cry from the cynical money-grubbing we see in Battlefront. I find it hard to take your feedback seriously or respect your position with such unnecessary hostility in it.

 

Edit: Also it's frankly silly to judge his entire kit according to some years-old flavor text. If anything we should be asking for a new description.

I wouldnt have used Volt so extensively if I didnt enjoy some aspect of him however his kit is badly disjointed and a more streamlined kit like Nidus or Trinity or Mesa has would be great.

Melee volt is the favorite scheme of a lot of players. A lot of the issues I pointed out are not original arguments and have been pointed out before, extensively.

The devs may have designed the game systems but they also consistently demonstrate next to no understanding of what makes Warframe fun. Scott feels 3m Univac is great because it happens to be noticable at a walking speed. They felt Oberon's initial rework was "ok" despite his 1 being unable to kill a lv 1 heavy gunner. New player experience was deemed to be fine for a long time until Steve actually sat down and played the first few hours of the live build. They feel current stealth mechanics are "OK" despite the fact that even one shotting enemies will wipe the stealth bonus. They feel invisibility is OK. They felt releasing Mesa's original 360 degree infinite aimbot ult was ok. Lets see what other systems were/are abysmally bad and lacking. Focus 1.0 and 2.0 are full of mostly useless nodes with a few overpowered ones. Awing is in a sorry state and only recently did some Awing mods drop outside of Awing missions. Skywing is awkward. Sharkwing is even worse. They thought Rivens were a great idea for balancing weapons except decent rolls are locked behind up to 7 layers of RNG but it's ok because you can always buy them for plat right? A lot of starter weapons are still unusable even with perfect rivens. I certainly havent seen a Skana or Lato type weapon in a sortie or flood in months. They thought conclave was a good idea except for the fact that P2P hosting has been demonstrated to produce consistently bad environments for PvP game modes. You seem to have been around for a while, I'm sure it felt great that all the resources you have gathered through prior gameplay were completely invalidated by the isolated nature of PoE. Idk. I guess these problems are small potatoes for you and the Devs know the game like the back of their hand and are 100% correct in what they're doing.

I too can compare McDonalds to a pile of steaming S#&$. McDonalds is objectively better. It's hard not to be. Why not compare Up instead of to rock bottom.

These changes came out a year and a half after the last real change to Volt. They are small, do very little, and completely ignore all of the feedback threads that were present during the last rework BUT OH LOOK A NEW VOLT SKIN. I suppose you think the fact a bunch of presidential debates also happened to be scheduled during football game times isnt a coincidence either.

I'm not supposed to make a judgement on a frame based on marketing materials? That's called false advertising which I'm surprised you're suggesting you are fine with. But wait this is just a GAME except some people pay real money for this stuff.

Edited December 1, 2017 by ADirtyMonk

[Azrael]

25 minutes ago, ADirtyMonk said:

I'm not supposed to make a judgement on a frame based on marketing materials?

"Marketing materials" you mean a years-old flavor text? It's, like, one line of text. It's not like DE is releasing videos where they describe him as an alternative to gunplay and advertise the game based on that. This is hyperbole.

 

27 minutes ago, ADirtyMonk said:

These changes came out a year and a half after the last real change to Volt. They are small, do very little, and completely ignore all of the feedback

They do not ignore all of the feedback, they are in response to feedback. They just ignored your favorite feedback, or don't implement it, and you call this ignoring all feedback because you're upset.

 

28 minutes ago, ADirtyMonk said:

They felt Oberon's initial rework was "ok" despite his 1 being unable to kill a lv 1 heavy gunner.

Wait, are you criticizing DE for a thing that they changed in response to feedback, in a thread where you claim they ignore all feedback? Make up your mind! Oberon is in a really great place now, I love what they did with him and play him all the time. In fact this entire paragraph is filled with inaccuracies and opinions which you state as fact. For example, I personally take my Lato to sorties all the time, it works fine. Same goes for my MK1-Braton, MK1-Kunai, and MK1-Paris, all of which I've forma'd up and acquired rivens for. Not every weapon has to be top-tier, but rivens make bad weapons sortie viable on a regular basis.

 

54 minutes ago, ADirtyMonk said:

New player experience was deemed to be fine for a long time until Steve actually sat down and played the first few hours of the live build.

Once again, you state inaccurate things in order to read unnecessary cynicism into DE's actions. They had stated plenty of times that they wanted to improve the new player experience, long before Steve started streaming. What that did was give him a better idea of what the problems were, and how to fix them. It still needs improvement, but claiming that DE thought it was fine before Steve started streaming is ridiculous.

 

32 minutes ago, ADirtyMonk said:

They feel current stealth mechanics are "OK" despite the fact that even one shotting enemies will wipe the stealth bonus.

You also have a habit of reading negative things into DE's actions without cause. The above is a great example (though not the only one), DE is aware of the issues with stealth and definitely want to change it, but they've struggled to for several reasons, not the least of which is the ongoing discussion regarding focus gains and balance. Just because they haven't managed to improve an existing system or fix a bug, doesn't mean they don't want to, don't care, or think it's okay. Everyone knows stealth is broken right now, in more ways than one, and as much as I hate (really, truly hate) the current system I also believe that it will be fixed. It may take longer than I'd like, and it's legitimate to criticize DE's priorities, but saying that they think it's okay is silly.

Also don't be so quick to demand stealth changes! Right now stealth melee kills can get a x10 multiplier, which is further multiplied by 1.23 (aggregate, since melee kills send 50% to the weapon) if you use naramon. Who's to say that the reworked system will allow a x12.3 affinity multiplier that can be obtained by spamming sleep everywhere? Personally I hope they leave stealth alone until focus gains are reworked and made more reasonable.

 

38 minutes ago, ADirtyMonk said:

Focus 1.0 and 2.0 are full of mostly useless nodes with a few overpowered ones.

Focus 1.0 was like this, but the current system is FAR better about this. There are some nodes that are completely useless, and some that are stupidly overpowered (permanently open to finishers? who thought THAT was a good idea?). But most of the nodes are useful, or at least fun to use. I'm particularly enjoying Zenurik's CC-oriented nodes (the two Void Blast ones) and the ball lightning one, but really all of the trees have something fun and useful to offer besides their waybound passives and primary nodes. That's a big change from before, when the passives were all anyone even cared about. There are still problems, but we know those are on DE's radar and they've heard feedback (even though for some godawful reason they've decided to keep Convergence).

 

Look, I think you have some points about Volt, perhaps. And there are definitely problems with the game, and I definitely take issue with DE's priorities as far as fixing certain issues goes. But it's almost impossible to focus on that when you make such extreme statements as " design team who instead implement changes that demonstrate immense laziness/ignorance of their own game and worse willfull ignorance of the players." By attacking the devs you place anyone who doesn't feel it's justified on the defensive, forcing them to defend DE instead of bringing up their own criticisms. This is why people feel like the forum's filled with "white knights," because feedback threads are filled with pointless vitriol and more reasonable people feel compelled to defend them instead of stating their own criticisms.

[jofdeath]

54 minutes ago, ADirtyMonk said:

I'm not sure you even read my post. I specifically mention how Strength builds gimp range unless you're not actually running a high duration build. Having to cast one ability that is essentially a tiny AOE CC to give yourself breathing room to cast what is basically more CC is called a dependency not synergy. It's bad design and also hilariously underpowered compared to other warframes. Loki/mesa/chroma/inaros/nidus and a lot of other top tier frames dont have to cast one ability to cast another and they benefits of their abilities are much more potent than volt's whether it is CC or damage.

 

I get that you like shield. That's great. A static shield is also completely contradictory to the rest of volt's kit and Riot shield is unecessarily punishing for no good reason and not even reliable defense.

 

 I'm also going to call bullS#&$ on "spamming all day". 45% efficiency puts Shock and speed at 39 energy/cast. Shield at 78. Discharge at 155. That is absolutely unsustainable unless you are running some combo of rage/adrenaline + energizing dash + arcane energize.

 

i found that if your going in to cast 4 to CC everything, theres a good enough time to cast so you get shields back fast enough wit the capacitance augment + max overshield, as for its utility, its a garenteed stun on key targets, excal has a invincable dash but puts him in range and kinda screwd if he doesnt kill it, inaros 1 synergises with killing, loki is a odd one that gots to be used wierdly for max efficincy, nidus is relyant on it which is why it scales. the fact is 2 of his abilitys have a stun ability to it regardless with 4 being a large over time well one is a pocket stun that is a 1h ability that doesnt interupt anything.

my build is 150 dur, 50 eff, 145 range and 220% str with growing power on, i use this on 5th bountys all the time and i spam the ever living crap out of abilitys, the only time i ever see my energy go below 400(prime flow) is when i stand there and tank hits with gladiator finesse, energy orbs in plains and outside of plains drop so much that i just stop caring most of the time outside of the inital entery of the plains for energizing dash(i only have it on because of spaming bountys so i use it for that inital burst)

and as for static shield its useful to leave in def position for objectives well as playing defencive. not to metion that every single ability doesnt have to work around one kid, theres only at best 2 or 3 frames i can think of atm that use all 4 abilitys at once, there are ways to play every frame atlest in 2 or 3 different ways with volts shield allowing a defencive play vs his CC play or his melee play with speed

[SenorClipClop]

13 hours ago, ADirtyMonk said:

None of the starters are jack of all trades anything and none perform all that great in lv 90+ missions either.

*laughs in Radial Blind pops, Electric Shield fizzles and Magnetize hums*

[Vafthrudnir]

15 hours ago, ADirtyMonk said:

None of the starters are jack of all trades anything and none perform all that great in lv 90+ missions either.

Excuse me what?

Excalibur is stupidly strong and brings everything from CC, Damage, and Invulnerability.

Mag is not a jack of all trades but for sure she works at all levels for her 2 while her kit is super flawed.

She dies at all levels tho, and a quick thinking build is not possible, and shields are bad.

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

Am 1.12.2017 um 03:07 schrieb Alangme:

Valkyr is just attacking speed, not running speed.

You don't run that much anyways when meleeing... plus valkyrs war cry doesn't need frickin duration or efficiency .. just 1 mod and kills to be on indefinitly.

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

I like tgis post, and i think the copy and paste suggestions might really help them if they ever read this.

[DirePresent]

8 hours ago, (PS4)CoolD2108 said:

You don't run that much anyways when meleeing... plus valkyrs war cry doesn't need frickin duration or efficiency .. just 1 mod and kills to be on indefinitly.

It seems you can speak for everyone since you've said that. I do run a lot while using melee by the way. Also I just don't need any mod for Volt in my current build.

[DirePresent]

10 hours ago, giovanniluca said:

Excuse me what?

Excalibur is stupidly strong and brings everything from CC, Damage, and Invulnerability.

Mag is not a jack of all trades but for sure she works at all levels for her 2 while her kit is super flawed.

She dies at all levels tho, and a quick thinking build is not possible, and shields are bad.

But Excal is not as easy to get as Volt or Mag, even if he's cheap he's difficult to get by Conclave or missions. Seriously I didnt want to believe that about power creep and stuff. But I'm really getting angry at current DE policies. Volt and Mag are nerfed? How odd, just the easiest to get and oldest frames. Meanwhile on the other side the newest frames are stupidly OP and difficult to get as hell... so diff many players just prefer to buy them straight up. Same with primes frames being far more op than the first ones (Volt prime having far more armor/energy than volt, oberon having far more energy and armor - while frost just has 25 more shields or mag has just 25 more health). 
And people complains also about Zephyr, why'd DE boost a frame that no one'd buy and just get from Dojo? Who knows, maybe Banshee'll be the next frame to get a "potentially exploitable buff" as the one Volt got.

I know it's a F2P, and you might think it's not that of a big deal, but that "buff" seriously damaged my survivability on high level content since I cant use Discharge for so long. I know I can change my build, but why? That'd change the entire purpose of it, I'd build for negative strength to negate the damage cap and thus I'd be affecting the main reason I use Volt (Speed). And if DE keeps going on such path, then I think I've already get fed up of such things.

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

vor 15 Minuten schrieb Alangme:

It seems you can speak for everyone since you've said that. I do run a lot while using melee by the way. Also I just don't need any mod for Volt in my current build.

For a big majority at least. Can't immagine much people who'd trade survivability and builds that allow infinite duration on pretty much double the strength for a lil running speed when the amplified attack speed gets you over the map regardless...

 

If it's just for the buff, what a fully specialised melee volt is all about (that and shock, depending on if you use narrow mindet or not. Not that melee produced Cc or paralysis is any inferior) then you're beein outclassed by valkyr, what's just a hell of a design flaw.

The shock link range shouldn't be affected by range and his speed could really use a duration buff if nothing else.

[Gurpgork]

On 11/30/2017 at 6:40 PM, ADirtyMonk said:

"This is a high damage warframe perfect for players who want a potent alternative to gunplay"

There are 2 alternatives to gunplay. Abilities and melee. Volt cannot do either very well.

Then why don't we just change his description? Even people who really like Volt want his description changed. He's actually a really potent supplement to gunplay, not an alternative. I think the approach with any Volt rework should be to make him better at what he is (a tactical, utility-focused generalist with a reasonable supplement to a variety of playstyles) rather than trying to turn him into something he's not. 

We already have many high-damage alternatives to gunplay: Excalibur, Gara, Atlas, Valkyr, Saryn, Wukong, and Ash, just to name a few. Why do we need another? Why are we completely scrapping Volt based on one line of flavor text? 

[DirePresent]

5 minutes ago, (PS4)CoolD2108 said:

For a big majority at least. Can't immagine much people who'd trade survivability and builds that allow infinite duration on pretty much double the strength for a lil running speed when the amplified attack speed gets you over the map regardless...

 

If it's just for the buff, what a fully specialised melee volt is all about (that and shock, depending on if you use narrow mindet or not. Not that melee produced Cc or paralysis is any inferior) then you're beein outclassed by valkyr, what's just a hell of a design flaw.

The shock link range shouldn't be affected by range and his speed could really use a duration buff if nothing else.

But Volt'd not be supposed to outperform Valkyr at melee, just to be able to kill units and being able to get faster to several points. The thing is that Volt has no inherent destruction power like a Quake Banshee or a Slowva, he relies only on his CC and his weapons, and he's pretty good at boosting all type of weapon. Valkyr is just too melee focused to be useful in a lot of scenarios. And Volt can not only go faster than Valkyr but also boost his primary and secondary attacks with Shield.

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Alangme:

But Volt'd not be supposed to outperform Valkyr at melee, just to be able to kill units and being able to get faster to several points. The thing is that Volt has no inherent destruction power like a Quake Banshee or a Slowva, he relies only on his CC and his weapons, and he's pretty good at boosting all type of weapon. Valkyr is just too melee focused to be useful in a lot of scenarios. And Volt can not only go faster than Valkyr but also boost his primary and secondary attacks with Shield.

In what scenario would you rely on both tho? Or rather, what kinda build could cover both?

Getting even anything outa his melee potential requires a full QT build with at the very least 3-6 mod slots occupied.

Vitality, QT, P Flow - ideally Steel fiber, rage and streamline too, what leaves room for some strength and duration. Period. There isn't really an option to that because his cc is what it is, unable to protect you if you're not focusing on it and in conflict with his buffs if you do. Adding shocking speed to the mix reduces the range requirement for shock but also reduces his kit to like 2 abilitys, of which he is only able to ever use one at a time.

You're telling me this is fine? When any physical OR ranged buffer in the game can do the same thing better?...

Name one reason anyone would be better off playing volt over valkyr, chroma, banshee, atlas, ash, ivara, even frost or nova if it's not for the fandom? The speed can't be it with how he's beein outclassed even in that regard if he's not building for it in specific.

Edited December 3, 2017 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[ADirtyMonk]

18 hours ago, giovanniluca said:

Excuse me what?

Excalibur is stupidly strong and brings everything from CC, Damage, and Invulnerability.

Perhaps I was too harsh on Excal. No complaints about Exalted blade's damage output from me. Yes he can CC but Blind its limited by LOS and relatively expensive (compared to his energy pool size) unless its specifically built around. It also shuts off Rage/Adrenaline since it completely stops enemies from shooting at you which is rather important to sustaining EB since EB shuts off Zenurik/Pads and Energize is not a realistic option for most players. Invulnerability from Slash dash is great except even with EB on its damage isnt all that impressive compared to EB spam. It also ends the second SD ends so you end up with the Atlas situation where the second you stop casting you get nuked. The targeting is wonky and will miss enemies above and below the plane you are on and can overshoot enemies on the same plane as you. Lastly while he is on the tankier side at lower levels Excal transitions into a glass cannon against lv 90s since, like Volt, he has abilities that puts him in front of enemies yet lacks sufficient damage reduction. A lv 90 scorch burns through Steel fiber + Vit (525 armor, 740 HP) in about 2 seconds, techs have an even faster kill time and a Napalm will flat out one shot that build if the shot connects. You get a a little more time if EB happens to be out but auto block only works on things in front of you and doesnt stop damage from procs. Channeled blocking will immediately empty your energy pool. Blind is deficient for reasons stated above. Then again I suppose almost every warframe has issues with those unit types and against everything else he performs decently well but definitely not as good as you make him sound.

17 hours ago, (PS4)CoolD2108 said:

You don't run that much anyways when meleeing... plus valkyrs war cry doesn't need frickin duration or efficiency .. just 1 mod and kills to be on indefinitly.

I find that enemies are often just far enough to be out of melee range of most weapons but too close for bullet jumping and too far for rolling. One of the things that kills me the most with squishier melee frames is trying to get to a hard hitting unit (techs, flamethrowers, etc) before they output enough damage to kill me. Granted this isnt an issue with the highly mobile stances or with meta weapons like Guandao or Atterax.

I tried to like war cry valkyr. The survivability was very nice but the lack of room for sprint speed mods meant that she just wasnt scratching the same itch Volt does. I liked hysteria builds even less since the claws have no range, the stance is not mobile, and hysteria builds neuter Hysterical assault so again mobility is limited even more.

8 hours ago, Gurpgork said:

Then why don't we just change his description? Even people who really like Volt want his description changed. He's actually a really potent supplement to gunplay, not an alternative. I think the approach with any Volt rework should be to make him better at what he is (a tactical, utility-focused generalist with a reasonable supplement to a variety of playstyles) rather than trying to turn him into something he's not. 

We already have many high-damage alternatives to gunplay: Excalibur, Gara, Atlas, Valkyr, Saryn, Wukong, and Ash, just to name a few. Why do we need another? Why are we completely scrapping Volt based on one line of flavor text? 

DE certainly can.

It would definitely be the lazy way out of it. It also doesnt change the fact that there are are a lot of frames that do what volt does for gunplay much better. Electric shield's damage boost is pitiful and much less convenient than what even Rhino can put out and Roar is on the weaker end of weapon buffs. Forget comparing Volt's gun potential to frames like Mirage, Chroma, Nova, Octavia. 

We do have a tactical, utility focused generalist with a reasonable supplement to a variety of playstyles. He is called Vauban and half his kit is useless because fast, mobile gameplay does not overlap well with "tactics" or warframes dumb as rocks AI. The only time I see a Vauban is on defense missions or LoR for Bastille spam. I suppose Ivara and Octavia count too and they have scaling abilities + invisibility abuse unlike Volt which has neither.

I can argue that there are just as many or more warframes that cater to guns than melee/abilities.

That one line of flavor text is the only concrete word of god players have when making a judgement on Volt aside from his official warframe profile video which is so outdated it still shows UI 1.0. Unless you expect us (and especially new players) to read DE's mind as to what they intended Volt to be or to dig into the wiki that text is what defines Volt.

Edited December 3, 2017 by ADirtyMonk

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

vor 9 Stunden schrieb ADirtyMonk:

-snip-

Eternal war creates all kinda room for her since it completely dissables absolute need for flow, efficiency or duration, what reduces her base build to Vitality, steel fiber, rage and Eternal war. That's still 4,5 slots for strength, running speed or gadgets (like paralysis builds or sets)

High str makes her melee attacks much faster then with the extra strength (i mean blind rage is totally possible on that setup. Paralysis is basicly a free cast and warcry doesn't need to be recast with enemys around.) what basicly skyrockets her animation speed on stances with high mobility. You don't really have to bother with running or the likes when a block combo from Tempo royale covers that distance.. not to mention the resulting knockdowns just from that.

Edited December 3, 2017 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[Ventura_Highway]

1 hour ago, ADirtyMonk said:

Mirage, Chroma, Nova, Octavia. 

I really don't think Octavia is my idea of a balanced Warframe.

Overall I don't feel like I agree with the logic here, because it seems like there's this idea that one thing being worse than the others means it's worthless, but I supplement my melee play with ranged weapons, and that shield is what lets me nail dead bombards from afar in seconds, and that shield's crit damage lets me opticor down Tusk ships in one go in stage 5 bounties.

1 hour ago, ADirtyMonk said:

I find that enemies are often just far enough to be out of melee range of most weapons but too close for bullet jumping and too far for rolling. One of the things that kills me the most with squishier melee frames is trying to get to a hard hitting unit (techs, flamethrowers, etc) before they output enough damage to kill me. Granted this isnt an issue with the highly mobile stances or with meta weapons like Guandao or Atterax.

This is assuredly not an ultimate solution to the issues of enemies that can tear Volt down seconds before you get to them, but I've bound my operator key to E for these situations since my melee key is on my mouse. If I can't gap-close them with Volt, the operator comes with Void Dash, which is in this context, an invincible directed charge where you want it to go. Hitting the napalm or whatever will ragdoll them, and usually when I am forced to resort to this they do not get back up before I blend them up.

Edited December 3, 2017 by Ventura_Highway

[DirePresent]

8 hours ago, (PS4)CoolD2108 said:

Name one reason anyone would be better off playing volt over valkyr, chroma, banshee, atlas, ash, ivara, even frost or nova if it's not for the fandom? The speed can't be it with how he's beein outclassed even in that regard if he's not building for it in specific.

Cause it's fun is an acceptable reason for you maybe? And also as I said, I love speed and being able to run as fast as i can, yes, he might not be as fast as a portal nova (though more energy efficient) but he used to perform really well in basically any condition. 

[ADirtyMonk]

2 hours ago, Ventura_Highway said:

I really don't think Octavia is my idea of a balanced Warframe.

Overall I don't feel like I agree with the logic here, because it seems like there's this idea that one thing being worse than the others means it's worthless, but I supplement my melee play with ranged weapons, and that shield is what lets me nail dead bombards from afar in seconds, and that shield's crit damage lets me opticor down Tusk ships in one go in stage 5 bounties.

This is assuredly not an ultimate solution to the issues of enemies that can tear Volt down seconds before you get to them, but I've bound my operator key to E for these situations since my melee key is on my mouse. If I can't gap-close them with Volt, the operator comes with Void Dash, which is in this context, an invincible directed charge where you want it to go. Hitting the napalm or whatever will ragdoll them, and usually when I am forced to resort to this they do not get back up before I blend them up.

I brought up those warframes as examples of frames benefiting gunplay that are leagues above what Volt is capable of doing.

I agree that just because an ability is not the best doesnt mean its worthless. The overall kit has to  have some degree of balance within the kit and to other frames but a 50% unmodifiable electrical damage boost is probably one of the worst buffs in warframe at the moment. The 200% CD boost is nice and has some uses but isnt modifiable, doesnt stack, and limits you to a rather small number of weapons if you want reliable damage. Sure you can stack the electric damage with up to 4 shields but then the cost becomes excessive for the buff unless you've gone for a Shield centric build in which case there are significantly better choices out there.

My biggest problem is that shield forces a frame with an ability to improve movement and encourages melee to stay still to benefit from it or pay exorbant amounts of energy for a not very reliable defense. Like I said in the original post I'd be very happy if shield gave a flat armor buff to allies running through it similar to Renewal.

I'ved tried to use the Operator as a gap closer and its been hit and miss. Sometimes it works great, sometimes its imprecise and throws enemies everywhere. Definitely still need to experiment with some of the nodes in Zenurik that I still need to fully unlock.

Edited December 3, 2017 by ADirtyMonk