Volt - An alternative to gunplay (suggested changes)

[Kthal]

"An alternative to gunplay"

I love this as a concept. The issue with this is that any energy used by Volt to directly kill enemies will not recoup itself. Without being able to sustain his own ability use, Volt will never match his description.

To that end, I would suggest tweaking Shock. Add a flat chance for all enemies hit by Shock to drop energy orbs on death.

Note, I am not suggesting enemies killed by Shock, but enemies hit by Shock, as long as they are killed within a reasonable timeframe, I'm picturing 8 seconds. Balance would be tricky, but since Shock will typically hit ~3 enemies, more if you're conservative, I would suggest a 25% base chance, possibly scaling with power strength, to make it not a free ability. For consistency sake, and ease of implementation, it could be handled as a copy/paste of Nekros's Desecrate, with the corpse being destroyed to yield the energy orbs.

(As a side note - If balanced correctly, this would further weaken the monopoly Trinity has on energy restoration.)

If "Volt is not CC", then the entire idea of his ultimate needs to be reconsidered. The damage cap absolutely needs to go, but if that's the case, it has been pointed out that Discharge would do obscene damage. I'm not so confident about this, but what if Discharge did a fifth of the damage it does currently, but stored up potential damage to be added to any Shock chains to and from the target? This would fit the flavour of storing up power, and would add some of that ability synergy which everyone is liking these days. As a concession about the CC argument, I would also suggest making the ability only stun up to a damage cap, but still apply all other effects for the full duration.

While not being able to cast Discharge in the air was clunky and made no sense from a gameplay standpoint, it did have a thematic feel to it. Since air-casting it is currently broken, an idea I had for a while is that when cast in the air, the pulse and effects of the ability are delayed until the moment the player touches the ground. This would potentially be a lot of fun in practice, launching into the air, using the ability, then steering yourself to touch down in the middle of a crowd for an instant advantage.

Oh, and as a last comment on Discharge - make pulse range depend on duration. This isn't a huge change to the ability directly, but changes the modding dynamic such that he's a lot more interesting to build.

Looking at Electric Shield, it really should drain per second, not per meter. I am in agreement that carrying the shield for free would be a bit much, but on a frame with Speed, having it tied to distance traveled is not right.

As a final thought, one of the first things new players coming to the game will see are the descriptions for the starter frames. "An alternative to gunplay" either needs to be made a reality, or removed.

tl;dr:
Make Shock force energy orb drops
My take on Discharge changes - Less damage, stun as secondary to damage, buffs Shock by an obscene amount, expands using duration

Edited December 3, 2017 by Kthal

[KYVampire]

Agreed with this wholeheartedly. 
Volt is one of the current starter frames and one of the frames that some new players will choose as their entry-point into playing Warframe. His tagline of "potent alternative to gunplay" is very misleading as in fact only one of his abilities really give an alternative to gunplay (speed, which benefits melee combat more over guns). Shock is a great CC ability and the electric status effect opens up the heads of enemies to easy headshots. Shield gives buffs to shots fired through it and discharge is in a very awkward place as the damage cap stops it from being a long duration CC ability (which infuriatingly enough does not rely on duration) as well as a damage ability. 

Focusing Volt's playstyle around his Shock ability would encourage more power usage and give credence to his flavor text. Perhaps a combo counter much like Excalibur's Slash Dash or Atlas' Landslide could work in there? 

[Phyrak]

Unlimited power please

Either as tap/hold mechanic or switch akin to ivara or vauban to allow for some actual spell caster alternative to gunplay whilst being complimentary to gunplay with 3 and complimentary to melee with 2

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

We might as well just remove all descriptions from warframes at this point.