My personal opinion on how to "rework" Zephyr...

[PhoenixOfTheLost]

Now, just to clear things up, my first account is so old it's from update 3 and I didn't get far on it because of the lack of understanding and motivation I had for the game. Little need be said, I am also the kind of person who will get insanely bored of things insanely quick so I need something thatakes me want to come back to the game.

 

This is accomplished by Zephyr, the only frame I enjoy playing because she doesn't have an instant win button or any super OP thing she can do or build for.

 

So I see all these people saying that "Zephyr's 1st and 2nd abilities should be combined" which upsets me because:

1: This won't make her any better because she has 15 armor and anything this doesn't kill will have a field day with her because she's going to basically be open to most anything and being surrounded while grounded with no reliable escape will make her no better than she is now.

 

2: This removes a lot of her manuverability in general which I LOVE about her. The fact that she's the best choice for taking and advantage point or a spot where she can shoot anything anywhere on a defense mission because it takes one press of a button to do so. She can practically get from one place to another to save you because you went down and volt has to take time to run after popping speed. She can hold to points in an interception mission alone because she's that fast. And she is also fun to play because I like feeling free as a bird (Bad pun I know)

 

So how would I "rework" or "buff" Zephyr? People are probably thinking I would say I wouldn't buuuut...

Starting with her first ability, make it so when used while grounded will create an updraft making enemies floating targets or even allowing allies to use said updraft to fly with Zephyr so she's at least somewhat helpful with it even if people don't feel like shooting the suspended enemies.

For her second ability, it being more of an initiator, can do what all these other frames do and open enemies up for finishers or be similar to the Rhino stomp but causes a massive knockback once the effect wares off for good damage if enemies hit a wall.

For her third ability, make it so it's a more helpful to the team so she doesn't need to remain perched on the defense point or follow whatever Ally she wants to help. Very few frames, if any, can relaiably follow her through the air and chasing her is rather difficult when one button makes her rocket upwards.

And for her fourth ability, the reason most squads have trouble managing her, can be solved in a massive, massive buff. For starters, make the tornados have higher status proc. Then make is so they pick enemies up and then until the ability ends while acting like either a mass bullet atractor or shooting the tornados does damage to all the enemies picked up, ending in all the damage being spread out again in a big blast which hurts the enemies trapped in the tornado. Make it so you can charge it to decrease the amount of tornados but make them larger and more potent with a larger pickup range and can eventually be charge into a huge hurricane like move that keeps enemies trapped in the middle stunned and taking damage while having the same effect as before where enemies trapped inside all take damage from the hurricane being shot. The can also be used as a defense type then where enemies can't shoot through it and can't get inside it because touching it sweeps them into the air.

 

And there you have it. How I think Zephyr can be made more powerful while still being as fun to people like me as she already is.

 

You think I made a good point? I tried to keep the theme of airial combatant and mobility while making her more significant.

 

And before you go saying that this just makes her coppy other frames that are still supirior to Zephyr, I know this. The difference is Zephyr does rhino stuff with being mobile and costing less energy to do so, making it useable more frequently. She gives mass bullet imunity to allies, making her more beneficial to the team as a whole. She'll be able to disable enemies while having a high chance to prock status like corrosive or magnetic or radiation or whatever you want all the while making it so one gun can kill a hoard of enemies just by shooting the tornado that picked them up. There's nothing lost and everything gained and you will see lots of Zephyrs flying about in missions, the plains, the conclave, everywhere. Instant fix to everyone saying she's the worst frame in the game.

 

I also see someone commented on this thread that has made a thread that is for zephyr reworks. Since we clearly have the same thing in mind, making her better while keeping everything within the same abilities she has now. @Thaylien

 

So I visited their thread and asked if we could brainstorm a bit.

 

At this point, zephyr is in more of a time capsule from 2014 or whenever she was released. That's agreeing on what they said on their thread, it's obvious she's a bit out of date...

 

But if you look at all the frames coming out you have the likes of Nidus and Gara and more who have abilities that make them much more reliable or interesting and aren't super straitforward with them. Sure, this doesn't make then super good but it adds more to them that makes them interesting to have around.

 

So let's bring zephyr and her kit into 2017 with a bit of brainstorming to make her more useful. I personally would love brining zephyr to the modern Warframe by granting new effects to her abilities and a few possible changes... I even have an idea that stems from how well Tailwind and Divebomb synergize. It involves a change to Turbulance and making it so it alters abilities slightly while active at the cost of extra energy cost, sacreficing the protection for an extra effect for Divebomb and if used again too soon will cost extra energy and making tornados either bigger or do more damage but you can't use turbulence until it finishes and the tornados dissipate... Of course, Turbulance will become a toggle which is both a buff and a Nerf because it cots a set amount to activate and keeps eating energy. Of course, my idea for a general tailwind buff would be an updraft that suspends enemies for a bit if they get too close and giving allies a certain amount of wiegtlessness while inside it, but with Turbulance activated zephyr can float a bit (like how all those other people want but not how they wanted it) while being given a chance to shoot at the cost of extra energy drain on Turbulence. This can be cancled by using tailwind again, turning off Turbulance, crouching/bulletjumping and using divenomb. You can of course use the Divebomb+Turbulance combination this way, the one I will talk about in a bit, and ad more incentive to mixing things up a bit.

 

Divebomb would have faster decent with a wider radius and longer knockdown while deactivating Turbulance and making it cost more to activate and half to sustain. If you think a downdraft that would just slow or keep enemies stunned for a second instead of a knockdown would be good feel free to say so. That downdraft would probably help nullify airial units and help zephyr not fly about, perhaps make allies to hump into it have a slightly faster decent with no drawbacks like an elevator? It's more up to others who come by...

 

Turbulence can't stack with Turbulance :p

 

Tornado would just take Turbulance from zephyr to get a slight boost. Or would it be reasonable to give it less of an energy cost? It seems more fair that way. Of course, tornado requires a fix, maybe just spread damage while eating both enemies bullets and friendly ones which both harm those it grabs.

 

The only reason I would rather have her be oriented around synergy with such a powerful move is because it's something that will intice a bit of messing around with different tactics. Of course it's like Harrow but he sacrefice shields and gets stronger based how he used his first ability while granting buffs to everyone. Zephyr just has a lot of energy management to be handled. I don't expect this be given a positive response but I do hope it gets at least one positive response...

Edited December 13, 2017 by PhoenixOfTheLost
Tagged a person to help brainstorm a bit. Made a few idea or mechanical changes to her third ability with a focus on synergy.

[Vicsvinny]

People say Limbo's the worst frame but that's an entirely different bandwagon altogether

I think the reason why people dislike Zephyr so much is that she's just difficult to master. (From my personal perspective, and from what I've seen on the forums)

9 minutes ago, PhoenixOfTheLost said:

This is accomplished by Zephyr, the only frame I enjoy playing because she doesn't have an instant win button or any super OP thing she can do or build for.

This right here is why I think people hate on her so much. She doesn't have an ultimate that obliterates everything in the general area within mere seconds, she doesn't have any really potent buffs that just makes the team nigh invincible like other frames do.  And what's more, playing Zephyr kinda forces you to take a different approach to how you play the game. It's not just run and gun. it's jump, fly, glide, wall-run, hardcore parkour, all that good stuff.

Nonetheless. She needs a buff. She needs a rework. She needs Attention. She needs LOVE from someone who actively enjoys playing as her, and has brought forth good ideas, while still maintaining the overall feel of Zephyr.

That was why I up-voted.

[highisaac123]

1 minute ago, Vicsvinny said:

People say Limbo's the worst frame but that's an entirely different bandwagon altogether

I think the reason why people dislike Zephyr so much is that she's just difficult to master. (From my personal perspective, and from what I've seen on the forums)

This right here is why I think people hate on her so much. She doesn't have an ultimate that obliterates everything in the general area within mere seconds, she doesn't have any really potent buffs that just makes the team nigh invincible like other frames do.  And what's more, playing Zephyr kinda forces you to take a different approach to how you play the game. It's not just run and gun. it's jump, fly, glide, wall-run, hardcore parkour, all that good stuff.

Nonetheless. She needs a buff. She needs a rework. She needs Attention. She needs LOVE from someone who actively enjoys playing as her, and has brought forth good ideas, while still maintaining the overall feel of Zephyr.

That was why I up-voted.

you, dear sir, are correct, although I see zephyr as "eye in the sky," the scout, the mid air sniper, so I propose this, add an additional passive that increases sniper accuracy and reduce damage falloff mid air, also make some way for her to STAY mid air, like she is "The eye of the storm"

[darksithis002]

haha, limbo isn't bad at all. love freezing enemies as well as protecting rescue targets with him. he's a whole lot better since his rework. as for zephyr, most of the complaints i've seen have been around how she can't fly (unlike titania which i've heard ppl call zephyr 2.0). i do think it's ashame she can't fly, but she's still fun to play.

[Caelward]

Spoiler

3 hours ago, PhoenixOfTheLost said:

Starting with her first ability, make it so when used while grounded will create an updraft making enemies floating targets or even allowing allies to use said updraft to fly with Zephyr so she's at least somewhat helpful with it even if people don't feel like shooting the suspended enemies.

For her second ability, it being more of an initiator, can do what all these other frames do and open enemies up for finishers or be similar to the Rhino stomp but causes a massive knockback once the effect wares off for good damage if enemies hit a wall.

For her third ability, make it so every Ally within a certain range gets the protection and perhaps make it so there is a small chance melee attackers will get knocked back. Rather simple really...

And for her fourth ability, the reason most squads have trouble managing her, can be solved in a massive, massive buff. For starters, make the tornados have higher status proc. Then make is so they pick enemies up and then until the ability ends while acting like either a mass bullet atractor or shooting the tornados does damage to all the enemies picked up, ending in all the damage being spread out again in a big blast which hurts the enemies trapped in the tornado. Make it so you can charge it to decrease the amount of tornados but make them larger and more potent with a larger pickup range and can eventually be charge into a huge hurricane like move that keeps enemies trapped in the middle stunned and taking damage while having the same effect as before where enemies trapped inside all take damage from the hurricane being shot. The can also be used as a defense type then where enemies can't shoot through it and can't get inside it because touching it sweeps them into the air.

 

1.)Having Zephyr throw enemies into the air when she uses tailwind from the ground is a clever idea and I like it. Let any suckers who got too close get caught up the blast of air.

2.)I'm with Thaylien in that her #2 would be fine with an improved animation based knockdown and greater damage with height and possibly melee mods. I also wished it was much quicker than it is, rather than being comparable to the regular built in ground smash.

3.)I wonder if you haven't noticed. Zephyrs Turbulence is an area effect. So it is already shared with anyone she is next to or in front of. Think of it as a bubble that's attached her her. But to have every ally suddenly gain their own bubble, I would argue would be over powered. It is an extremely powerful effect as is. To make it stronger would have to come with nastier drawbacks. This is why so few reworks say anything other than 'don't change it'.

4.) Tornado is already potentially a damage dealing, status stacking wrecking ball. But its potential is wasted by bad pathfinding. By having no wander range limitations. By the inability to actually hold onto mobs for a reasonable amount of time. By the fact that it actually stops allied projectiles while ignoring enemy projectiles. And by throwing loot all over the map.

Give them a set range. Let the player turn them off. Hold enemies for a set time before dropping them in obscure sniping spots or dropping them on player heads. Dont throw loot accross the map and sure maybe they could hold the loot they directly wander across. If players can't shoot through them, then enemies shouldn't be able to either. The Tornadoes don't need to be buffed, they need to be fixed. These aren't quite the same things.

Having too many attractor abilities on Tornado wanders too closely to Mag and Vauban's kit. Charge up feels bad on Hydroid even when he's in the pool. I really don't want it on Zephyr when she's about the hit and move.

Spoiler

1 hour ago, darksithis002 said:

haha, limbo isn't bad at all. love freezing enemies as well as protecting rescue targets with him. he's a whole lot better since his rework. as for zephyr, most of the complaints i've seen have been around how she can't fly (unlike titania which i've heard ppl call zephyr 2.0). i do think it's ashame she can't fly, but she's still fun to play.

 

There was a time I told people I didn't like the idea of Zephyr having flight as compared to what she has now. Then Titania and Wukong came out and now I KNOW I don't want Zephyr to be able to fly. And that's not even getting into some of the huge arguments from much better put together people than me. If there's anything like that I would love to see it would be the ability to simply hold tailwind and have her keep going and allow you limited steering. That's it.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Caelward

[.Re-light.]

To me and any remaining soul from Conclave 1.0 (I doubt there are many) she is still the queen of mobility. Also her float y nature makes her real fun once you master parkur. With the Turbulance augment (the augment for 3rd ability) she does bring both defense, projectile speed and movement speed to the team. Whatever changes come her way, I really hope the "slow fall" and Turbulance augment stay the same. Her 4th is the biggest problem. It's effectively trolling your team if used. Dive bomb is also gimmicky but maybe could be usefull with a huge aoe and maybe a slow effect instead of flipping enemies over, making them harder to hit..

 

    I used her as pseudo AW in POE for the longest of time. Try Zarr carpet bombing if you haven't yet.

She feels at least like glider, while Wukong and Titania (I presume from youtube game play, never bothered to get her) don't feel like flying at all.. 

[darksithis002]

titania is fun to fly around with, best part of her to me, but i get what you mean.

[PhoenixOfTheLost]

I didn't expect any kind of positive feedback, but this was at least a pleasant surprise!

 

I do realize that turbulence is really strong, but my reason for granting it to others is because of how mobile Zephyr is. Very few can follow her while she's flying about, if even possible. And the way to make turbulence grant a boon to her team is an augment or stay near allies.  I suppose it doesn't need a change, maybe it would be nice to add a little thing that makes it less of a self-orientated defensive ability.

 

As for tornado, it's not entirely a bullet attractor, it just makes them so if you shoot them it hurts those it ends up holding. And it would keep holding them so it doesn't throw them around like a child having a temper tantrum. As for the holding, I only pick to have it like that since it's convenient and ads another option. I know it's like mag, vauban and hydroid but we have so many frames with regular projectiles and this just turn it into something that stops them or possibly pushes them away, whatever you prefer. I never really use tornado mid-air since I just fall to the ground. So it's not going to hurt anything. Hydroid, having level his prime on PS4, has a rather long charge just to make his area bigger. That's not bad but it doesn't change much. Just makes it a bigger area. Instead, it could just surround her instead while pushing enemies back? Not sure but tornado really is the reason people don't like her being with them. She's like that one kid on the playground that nobody wants to play with because she "messes everything up" and the like. So making it so it's less of an issue will make her infinitely more loved because she will finally be less of a burden and that kid nobody wants to play with will start being allowed to have fun with others. Of course, she is still going to be the one that is always airborne but at least there will be much less hate.

 

I would tag everyone but I already typed it and have a habbit of responding to every little thing so I'll be here for a very long time...

[Birdframe_Prime]

Zephyr rework thread 605, this definitely makes up for 604...

My friend, you're amazingly on my line of thinking, just a little newer to the Reworking section than me, come on over to my thread, have a read through and tell me that we're not on to exactly the same ideals here.

The plan to allow Tailwind some mild CC, even if you don't exploit it. To make Dive Bomb an engage ability. To make Tornado reliable instead of switching it out for something else...

You'll like what you find there as much as I like what I've found here.

Thank you for restoring my faith in the rework community XD

Edited December 12, 2017 by Thaylien

[Terrornaut]

On 12/10/2017 at 4:44 PM, PhoenixOfTheLost said:

Starting with her first ability, make it so when used while grounded will create an updraft making enemies floating targets or even allowing allies to use said updraft to fly with Zephyr so she's at least somewhat helpful with it even if people don't feel like shooting the suspended enemies.

I haven't seen this (I missed a couple zeph threads in the last 2 years lol), but this is seriously cool.  Like the way Limbo can leave behind a rift portal, if Zeph left behind an updraft upon using 1 so that you could bullet jump through it and go 3x your bullet jump distance or speed...that would be amazing and a lot of fun to have a Zeph around in missions.  Jump on Zeph airlines!

Like there are a lot of reasonable and important additions and suggestions that have been made, but really, I want this the most now and its not even important haha

I most often run Zeph with max range so that I can basically extend tailwind to my team if they're near me.  Is why for certain missions in recruiting I'll ask for Zeph if I'm asking for defensive frames.  That's like 200+ range though.  Divebomb Vortex actually becomes pretty useful at this point, and it helps Zeph out with ground finishers too.

4 I would be fine if it didn't amplify damage and just redirected bullets to targets in the tornado, whether it gave punchthrough or not.  And yeah, throwing loot, its funny to watch but its not good for anyone, though its pretty much better now compared to initial tornado (how did they think that was a good idea?).  I just want it to hold enemies longer, have aggressive/effective pathfinding, and absorb enemy bullets the way it absorbs ours.  Or just don't absorb bullets at all and just transfer status from attacks that go through it.  Why we are making walls that we can't shoot through but enemies can, I'll never know.

[Birdframe_Prime]

On 10/12/2017 at 9:44 PM, PhoenixOfTheLost said:

So let's bring zephyr and her kit into 2017 with a bit of brainstorming to make her more useful.

Alright, let's have a look.

My first thought is always 'please not Turbulence', because this is the most frequently updated and balanced ability in the game since release, every time just to get it to work properly. I don't think we'd ever sacrifice the protection it gives for... well, nearly anything, let's be honest here, Zephyr is too squishy outside of the shallow end to be able to survive ranged damage without it being as effective as it is.

I mean, the rare times I play with somebody on Oberon, able to give her 400 or so armour for around 60% damage reduction on over 1100 health, which is fun ^^ But not precisely the point here.

So, my first reaction to your concept of 'It involves a change to Turbulance and making it so it alters abilities slightly while active at the cost of extra energy cost, sacrificing the protection for an extra effect' is that I really don't like it.

However! The other ideas here, the added functionality, is interesting and worth exploring. (I will state ahead of time, I've seen the idea of suspended enemies from Tailwind, and downward smashing those enemies with Dive Bomb several times before, and there are plenty of ways the concept can be expanded and refined, so we'll see what ideas can be taken from the previous suggestions.)

For example, after a lot of experimenting, the effect you'd functionally want in game is the same effect as the Exodia Epidemic, if you've seen that. The thing projects a beam (although with Zephyr it would be a radius) that suspends enemies in the air for a few seconds. It's similar in practice to a short-duration Rhino Stomp, due to the lifting animation, but the key there is that they're off the ground and hard Crowd Controlled for the duration.

This would make an incredible synergy because I believe this kind of suspension is common to the other abilities that suspend enemies, such as (the one I mentioned) Stomp, Vortex and so on. If it's an actual Status in the game, it can be played off with synergy, so making a Dive Bomb that does bonus effect, such as damage or armour strip, to Suspended enemies would not only encourage combos with other abilities that suspend enemies (heck even Bastille suspends enemies) but be perfect 'set up and knock down' synergy between abilities.

My overall point here being that giving Dive Bomb a bonus to the enemy state 'suspended', rather than specifically enemies lifted by Tailwind, would allow the ability to have that function even if you didn't combo the casts to achieve it (since Zephyr is so light that a Bullet Jump and secondary Jump take her as high as an un-modded Tailwind launch).

So, in practice the combo would be to approach a group of enemies, protected by Turbulence, launch vertically to suspend them, crash back down with Dive Bomb to damage them and smash suspended enemies into the ground again, with potentials for things like Armour Strip or increased Stun duration or anything like that. The base skills would still cost the same amount of energy, so Dive Bomb would still only be worth 25 energy to cast on its own, but the combo cast of Tailwind/Dive Bomb would have an affect on enemies that's worth the 50 energy total.

An important thing to note, though, is Zephyr is more vulnerable after a Dive Bomb anyway, if you're removing Turbulence to achieve this result this is where you will die the most, time and again. So lessening the effects of Turbulence as a cost is genuinely where I feel the concept falls through in that respect.

Then again, this could apply later on too, where you have a Vauban Vortex going to suck up all the enemies in a choke point, or around a Defense pod, and Zephyr comes in (off the top rope!) and smashes them all for increased damage and effects.

You could even make the effect capped-scaling... oooh... now this has possibilities.

Okay, literally brain-storming here, it's one that was suggested once. Just once, and it would have been over-powered in the original suggestion, but here? Might work. So Height already scales the damage of Dive Bomb. The damage scaling isn't all that good, and in my thread you'll read about how the scaling can be better, that's fine. But if the effects of Dive Bomb scaled with height too? This would drastically more encourage the vertical launch function of Tailwind, since not only would it apply the effect, but it's the quickest method of doing that and getting height to apply the effects. And if your height above ground dictated...

Okay, presume that there's a scaling cap on Dive Bomb of 75% of the base effects, and say the base effect is a small percentage of armour strip on suspended enemies. Say only 25%, right? At 170% Strength (a build I commonly run with for Jet Stream) that means the base armour strip would be 42.5%, and a 200% build, which sacrifices your Duration more, but is a nice round number, would be 50% strip. If you scaled this effect up with height, up to the cap, that would mean the first build had 74.4% armour strip, and the second build would have 87.5%. Which is kind of insane for an un-augmented 2 cast when you think about it...

Maybe scale that back, have a base of 20%, a 200% Strength build would be 40%, the scaled strip would be 70%... that's still pretty amazing. Uh... 15%? That's 52.5% Okie dokie, that's more like it, two casts of the Tailwind/Dive Bomb combo with 200% Strength on enemies for total armour strip at any level.

That's pretty damn good considering even a Streamline would bring the cost down to 35 Energy. The real cost is the time this takes to strip the armour, where you'd have to approach, cast, wait for the height, cast again, then repeat. And that's where I believe this would then be fair as an ability. To get to 200% strength on my own build, all I have to do is drop out Jet Stream and instead go for Intensify, and there we are, so the build is possible to run consistently, while the balance is that you would usually lack the ability to mod in for Augments to achieve a mission-viable build to achieve it.

Yeah... you could see great returns from that.

What do you think?

[Terrornaut]

The setup cost of two divebombs to strip (multiple) level 100 heavies of their armor under a build like that would probably be worth it, considering there is so much gear that could decimate them during that time, or just a little bit of range and power on an ash or banshee with an augment, feels reasonable enough.  It'd be more of a team support ability, but it would have great synergy.  And again, Zeph becomes an aggressive momma bird support which I think would be pretty welcome.

IE someone is in trouble or going to melee or deal with a group of enemies, Zeph has turbulence on for added defense of them both, dashes up into the air and then divebombs, or leaps over and up into the air and divebombs while someone spin attacks/aoe's or something and offs them.

It would allow her to do more than help people by hugging them with a +range build, and you're trading off direct damage for utility that allow other people yourself with certain situations, to combo with interesting setups (launchers with adhesive grenade for delayed blasts?)

When not playing Zeph or Harrow, as Ember, my main, she would be my best friend and I would follow her everywhere, and everything around us would die.  Especially if Tailwind left updrafts where you get increased bullet jump distance/speed to follow.

[PhoenixOfTheLost]

@Thaylien I like the idea of armor stripping. That's something that would excuse the low damage, but that would more result in people only wanting her to spam that. With all the toxicity I see from the community or just looking at the general mindset, people will begin to get upset if Zephyr (me, you or anyone) were to not spam divebomb over and over and instead jump around and have fun or use something that isn't using divebomb. That would turn me away since it's why frames like ember, Ash, valkyr, excal and other frames that are insanely good because you just need a single button to win the game and that's usually what everyone wants from you. Granted this will be a two button combo but everyone be will look away from tornado if it gets fixed because you can just setup divebomb and you need nothing else. I would say make tornado end up not only fixed but is a bit more helpful, like thrown enemies also have armor stripped or it makes them do less damage (like come on, being suddenly sucked up by a mini tornado will leave anyone shaken up and dizzy) or just reduce their accuracy. Slow them a bit, give them all around debuf and a status proc.

 

I know I'm having very little weight and the weight I do have is on the wrong side of the spectrum, but it was my idea to brainstorm, so I might as well keep going with it...

 

[Terrornaut]

1 hour ago, PhoenixOfTheLost said:

@Thaylien I like the idea of armor stripping. That's something that would excuse the low damage, but that would more result in people only wanting her to spam that. With all the toxicity I see from the community or just looking at the general mindset, people will begin to get upset if Zephyr (me, you or anyone) were to not spam divebomb over and over and instead jump around and have fun or use something that isn't using divebomb. That would turn me away since it's why frames like ember, Ash, valkyr, excal and other frames that are insanely good because you just need a single button to win the game and that's usually what everyone wants from you. Granted this will be a two button combo but everyone be will look away from tornado if it gets fixed because you can just setup divebomb and you need nothing else. I would say make tornado end up not only fixed but is a bit more helpful, like thrown enemies also have armor stripped or it makes them do less damage (like come on, being suddenly sucked up by a mini tornado will leave anyone shaken up and dizzy) or just reduce their accuracy. Slow them a bit, give them all around debuf and a status proc.

 

I know I'm having very little weight and the weight I do have is on the wrong side of the spectrum, but it was my idea to brainstorm, so I might as well keep going with it...

 

Tornado does some of what you're saying already, but it just doesn't do it consistently.  You can get a few procs off sometimes before an enemy is tossed out of a corrosive cloud, probably 3 on average, maybe 5 if lucky.  After being thrown, there are times enemies just don't get up, or get up after a while of just...staying down lol.  I see it happen often enough, more on the plains, but its so hard to find them without enemy radar sometimes I don't bother with it.  Also don't bother with it because it doesn't do enough of anything to be helpful or not-annoying when used indoors, but it will toss a few procs on it and disable enemies for a good while...sometimes.

I don't think people would demand divebomb Zephyrs, though they would seek them out.  The levels that armor becomes necessary to account for, people still wouldn't be calling for a zeph even if she provided team mobility, and ranged defense if you hug her, because she requires setup and working with her.  Most meta clingers in games in general are lazy minded people, and the proposed changes above for Zeph are too much for them to want to deal with.

Also you have to consider DB's limited range, even when building for high range.

[PhoenixOfTheLost]

@TerrornautI know that's how it works, and I believe nobody will call for anyone but one specific trin setup, excal and an ember. It's also a bit different from what you might think because Zephyr can easily set everything up herself on the fly. The Zephyr player just needs to be willing to move about or take her place perched on the defense point or hugging the person in a sortie. The fact that tornado will probably just be given a fix is nice, tailwind granting mobility to the team and (possibly) suspending enemies who got reckless and tried to get close l and the armor stripping on divebomb, give it a damage boost if it wouldn't break anything and give it better range. Maybe give it's range a little bit of scaling too. That's probably enough to keep her from being super OP I suppose... That and allowing tailwind to keep Zephyr in the air longer or directly after tailwind and you have all those people who want zephyr to have that as an ability can have it and they won't have Warframe-sized-bird-shaped-punching-bag or just a general toy for those enemies that didn't die to play with until it breaks. If people want to use her like that they can but they will at least get to see why it was such a bad idea for a change to begin with.

 

Besides all that, I feel like it's a reasonable change that everyone will be happy (or moderately so) with. I don't think I was important in such a thing but that's fine.

 

Edit: something I forgot to mention is that all zephyr's abilities do magnetic damage and only tornado shows it has status. I hit a sentient with divebomb until it decided to give itself magnetic resist. Granted, I don't think I used only divebomb but I don't have magnetic damage on my guns. But it's a challenge if you want to look at it that way. See if you can kill a sentient using divebomb. I need to try that again...

Edited December 15, 2017 by PhoenixOfTheLost

[Terrornaut]

They probably will call for a setup like that, though, could honestly substitute trin out for nearly anything else when Ember is running the show, unless its a bless or abating armor trin.  Lazy EV doesn't do much for Ember really.  As an Ember main in high content I'd much rather have a harrow, a slova, an armor stripping oberon frost or mag.  They'll all contribute to my survival and energy efficiency (through vastly increased damage and safety) than a trin who's likely to shoot mobs now and then and just EV while I run the risk of instakilling it before I even turn to notice the blue flashes.  But people worship ev trin whether she's necessary or not, but, that's another topic entirely.

But, yeah, some good ideas.  Hopefully they have read at least some of the feedback when they deal with Zeph and don't give us some totally left field stuff that does nothing for anybody that nobody ever asked for.

[Versa]

I will agree with some of the changes brought up but not all.

First having her 1 lift enemies into the air on takeoff is probably one of the better ideas ive heard. I would also give her 1 the combo counter for reduced cost and more damage(reduced cost is the only one that really matters here) that other 1s have but have it have a recast window of more along  3-5 seconds due to how long the animation of the ability is and how its not often useful to spam so quickly. Otherwise I would leave tailwind alone, the current functionality is good enough as mobility either for the vertical takeoff without looking up and for directional movement in the air. I use both the vertical and horizontal components frequently and the actual motion of them in their current state is suitable.

Her 2 having a radial ragdoll instead of a knockdown may help but im not entirely sure about how to handle her 2. It definitely needs either a utility function or a harder CC effect perhaps also like the lifting into the air suggested for her 1. Its AOE should probably be increased slightly from the 6m base radius it has now.

Her 3 should be left alone, the varied ability effects idea based of if its active or not would not work well at all. She entirely relies or turbulence to survive with practically 0 armor so that downtime that will occur to get a particular effect will likely lead to dying almost instantly at higher levels. Also having to constantly go through animations to get a particular effect would make her fairly clunky, think about trying to make use of both sides of equinox constantly, it would just serve as a counteracting nerf to all the improvements being suggested. It would also make her energy costs a good bit higher which means less uses of her one, which entails less effective mobility while trying to be effective at other things. Less mobility means less fun of a zephyr to me. Overall her 3 is entirely fine as is and trying to introduce "synergy" for the sake of synergy is not a good idea. it will only get caught up in how troublesome it is to make use of rather than having passive bonuses with other effects.

Her 4 is fairly good as it is, other than how its pathing works to make them wander from where you want it. All i would consider changing is increasing its status chance marginally and adding a 5th tornado that spawns at the location of your cursor as long as it is in range and if its not in range, it woulds spawn at the ground directly under the zephyrs feet. I suggest this so it makes high range builds seem less punishing as the random spawning makes it rather unreliable at those ranges when all the tornadoes can just spawn at the far reach of as much as 70m with the now attainable 280% range. This would allow tornadoes to have at least some reliable effect with any amount of range.

Edited December 17, 2017 by Kurayami_No_Yenshi

[PhoenixOfTheLost]

On 12/16/2017 at 11:21 PM, Kurayami_No_Yenshi said:

I will agree with some of the changes brought up but not all.

First having her 1 lift enemies into the air on takeoff is probably one of the better ideas ive heard. I would also give her 1 the combo counter for reduced cost and more damage(reduced cost is the only one that really matters here) that other 1s have but have it have a recast window of more along  3-5 seconds due to how long the animation of the ability is and how its not often useful to spam so quickly. Otherwise I would leave tailwind alone, the current functionality is good enough as mobility either for the vertical takeoff without looking up and for directional movement in the air. I use both the vertical and horizontal components frequently and the actual motion of them in their current state is suitable.

Her 2 having a radial ragdoll instead of a knockdown may help but im not entirely sure about how to handle her 2. It definitely needs either a utility function or a harder CC effect perhaps also like the lifting into the air suggested for her 1. Its AOE should probably be increased slightly from the 6m base radius it has now.

Her 3 should be left alone, the varied ability effects idea based of if its active or not would not work well at all. She entirely relies or turbulence to survive with practically 0 armor so that downtime that will occur to get a particular effect will likely lead to dying almost instantly at higher levels. Also having to constantly go through animations to get a particular effect would make her fairly clunky, think about trying to make use of both sides of equinox constantly, it would just serve as a counteracting nerf to all the improvements being suggested. It would also make her energy costs a good bit higher which means less uses of her one, which entails less effective mobility while trying to be effective at other things. Less mobility means less fun of a zephyr to me. Overall her 3 is entirely fine as is and trying to introduce "synergy" for the sake of synergy is not a good idea. it will only get caught up in how troublesome it is to make use of rather than having passive bonuses with other effects.

Her 4 is fairly good as it is, other than how its pathing works to make them wander from where you want it. All i would consider changing is increasing its status chance marginally and adding a 5th tornado that spawns at the location of your cursor as long as it is in range and if its not in range, it woulds spawn at the ground directly under the zephyrs feet. I suggest this so it makes high range builds seem less punishing as the random spawning makes it rather unreliable at those ranges when all the tornadoes can just spawn at the far reach of as much as 70m with the now attainable 280% range. This would allow tornadoes to have at least some reliable effect with any amount of range.

You bring up decent points but I'll keep the answer short.

 

Having ragdoll on divebomb instantly makes it a liability. Missed DPS is bad. It is also one reason people don't like tornado.

 

 

As for tornado,  it needs to not just toss enemies around while eating friendly bullets and not doing much to hostile bullets.

[Versa]

38 minutes ago, PhoenixOfTheLost said:

You bring up decent points but I'll keep the answer short.

 

Having ragdoll on divebomb instantly makes it a liability. Missed DPS is bad. It is also one reason people don't like tornado.

 

 

As for tornado,  it needs to not just toss enemies around while eating friendly bullets and not doing much to hostile bullets.

Ive since reconsidered that and I have another thread explaining a more complete concept of my current ideas.

I now think having divebomb suspend enemies in the air like the old zenurik transference for about 6-8 seconds base as a much more useful effect that could be implemented without being to much.

As for tornado, having it suck enemies and hold them in the middle like vortex would be a decent way to work while also being transparent to bullets or have infinite punchthrough, whatever needs to be done to let bullets pass through them but still pick up the elemental damage type. Along with that, making one of the tornadoes target with the reticle would work well.

[PhoenixOfTheLost]

23 hours ago, Kurayami_No_Yenshi said:

Ive since reconsidered that and I have another thread explaining a more complete concept of my current ideas.

I now think having divebomb suspend enemies in the air like the old zenurik transference for about 6-8 seconds base as a much more useful effect that could be implemented without being to much.

As for tornado, having it suck enemies and hold them in the middle like vortex would be a decent way to work while also being transparent to bullets or have infinite punchthrough, whatever needs to be done to let bullets pass through them but still pick up the elemental damage type. Along with that, making one of the tornadoes target with the reticle would work well.

I see your ideas and why they work, but when it comes to divebomb suspending enemies like the old Focus tree, Zenurik? It wouldn't make Mich sense because it was either lifting enemies up with mind or void energy. Zephyr uses wind and of course magnetic damage. Void is it's own damage. So it's doesn't make as much sense as armor stripping. Divebomb needs a huge boost since damage is lacking and it's meant to be an initiator ability seeing how you cone down on enemies. Having it jest suspend enemies is a bit of a waste since you can do damage but armored opponent's will often survive or when the effect ends you would have done free damage but they don't die any quicker. It's like having a temporary advantage that you need to use to kill your opponent quickly. If you fail you are at a disadvantage.

BUT rhino stomp doesn't make much sense either as it states he stomps with the power to create a stasis type thing, rupturing time and space. What is at maximum hight scaling it has a slightly less powerful version of that? It makes a bit of sense. Since my idea was to have Tailwind create an updraft and the sudden lift sweeps enemies into the air for a bit while granting weightlessness, that makes a bit more sense. Especially with rhino being able to stop hard enough to break space time. 

 

But Tornado being like a Vauban vortex, moreso than it already is makes people compare her to Vauban even more. And a cursor directed tornado isn't a huge fix. The fact that it spawns on enemies within range is good enough for me. Someone's it doesn't hit big enemies but it is pointless either way as large enemies won't care. They would be picked up and kept safe at the cost of status procs and light damage. It's because the AI was bad back then and has been improved for everything except tornado at this point. The pathfinding needs an update, the tornados need a fix, it need to not toss enemies to places you can't hit them or other safe places. A simple alteration like that will just make the fanbase pick on DE for a small change to something that gets so much flack. So it's not the best idea since it doesn't had anything useful to Zephyr or her abilities. Just a directed tornado and more people calling her a copy and paste frame that is weaker than the original ones she coppies.

 

I like your thoughts but it's not going to help zephyr too much. Just hurt her.

[Versa]

On 12/23/2017 at 12:32 AM, PhoenixOfTheLost said:

I see your ideas and why they work, but when it comes to divebomb suspending enemies like the old Focus tree, Zenurik? It wouldn't make Mich sense because it was either lifting enemies up with mind or void energy. Zephyr uses wind and of course magnetic damage. Void is it's own damage. So it's doesn't make as much sense as armor stripping. Divebomb needs a huge boost since damage is lacking and it's meant to be an initiator ability seeing how you cone down on enemies. Having it jest suspend enemies is a bit of a waste since you can do damage but armored opponent's will often survive or when the effect ends you would have done free damage but they don't die any quicker. It's like having a temporary advantage that you need to use to kill your opponent quickly. If you fail you are at a disadvantage.

BUT rhino stomp doesn't make much sense either as it states he stomps with the power to create a stasis type thing, rupturing time and space. What is at maximum hight scaling it has a slightly less powerful version of that? It makes a bit of sense. Since my idea was to have Tailwind create an updraft and the sudden lift sweeps enemies into the air for a bit while granting weightlessness, that makes a bit more sense. Especially with rhino being able to stop hard enough to break space time. 

 

But Tornado being like a Vauban vortex, moreso than it already is makes people compare her to Vauban even more. And a cursor directed tornado isn't a huge fix. The fact that it spawns on enemies within range is good enough for me. Someone's it doesn't hit big enemies but it is pointless either way as large enemies won't care. They would be picked up and kept safe at the cost of status procs and light damage. It's because the AI was bad back then and has been improved for everything except tornado at this point. The pathfinding needs an update, the tornados need a fix, it need to not toss enemies to places you can't hit them or other safe places. A simple alteration like that will just make the fanbase pick on DE for a small change to something that gets so much flack. So it's not the best idea since it doesn't had anything useful to Zephyr or her abilities. Just a directed tornado and more people calling her a copy and paste frame that is weaker than the original ones she coppies.

 

I like your thoughts but it's not going to help zephyr too much. Just hurt her.

The Zenurik effect is the best analog effect I can consider that lifts enemies in the air. When actually implemented, the idea is to have a wind effect lifting them like rising air currents or convection thermals. Divebomb cannot feasibly be made a damage ability, the fact that you need as much height as you do makes in absolutely ineffective on about 1/2 of the games rooms so having it make enemies entirely vulnerable at any height, in that they will be unable to move and have their head exposed, it makes a much better initiator as zephyr cannot deal with the enemies that will definitely survive if it was a damage ability as it would need incredibly high damage for an ability in this game. It would need damage in the realm that it could instantly kill all lvl50 trash mobs and do decent damage to heavies in its AOE with an achievable amount of power strength and time to actually set up like other damage abilities in game, and an ability like this will probably never get such base stats. I would much rather capitalize on her strength as a CC/defense frame than try and make her have an awkward and quick to fall off damage design. Dont forget that it does take a bit of time to get to a reasonable height even using her 1 and bullet jump and doing so will pull you away from any objective you are near and trying to redirect shots from with turbulence, so it would only make her more clunky to get effect out of. Having a hard CC effect that procs at any height tied to an ability to get down from heights fast gets zephyr 2 things, 1 a better crowd control effect that can be triggered from jumping and using 2 like can currently be spammed for knockdowns, and 2 the ability to reach the ground quickly if you were higher and needed to get down with her floaty passive.

Having the weightlessness tied to Tailwind would also put to much emphasis on one of her abilities while entirely forgetting about another. Also having enemies randomly drift everywhere from that would be just the same as Titanias' 1 and becomes counterproductive in actually dealing with enemies. I do understand some that wind is expected to be random in effect and wild, but wild effects simply do not have good actual effect and, this being a game, abilities need actual impact that doesnt directly oppose the players goal. Otherwise you get things like ragdoll on blast damage which become aggravating when an enemy shoots in a random direction when you needed to finish them, or simply shoots into space and will show up momentarily and still be a problem. Zephyr does not need to be more wild in her abilities, infact she needs the opposite as she does not have near the impact on her random or unreliable abilities like Divebomb and Tornadoes that a randomized effect would need to not be thrown away for a more effective frame. This is why I suggested having a fixed, or perhaps slightly bobbing suspend animation on her 2. It makes divebomb actually useful in common situations without taking anything from her already useful 1 and 3, It doesnt put too much emphasis an any one of her abilities, and it is consistent in its impact rather than unreliable like Titania 1 and ragdolls. So balanced ability value and useably reliable effect.

As for the comparisons with vauban, there are over 30 frames now, there is going to be overlap in the frames purposes and the overall effect of 2 frames, even with my concept, is still going to allow the frames to differentiate themselves. In this case, Tornadoes is NOT recastable as a reactive CC like vortex which you can reacast at will EXACTLY where you need to be. As for the target to cursor, that is so that high range builds dont suffer from the random spawning of tornadoes. with high range they will spawn randomly in an area up to 70 m, and with that large of an area, they will almost never spawn where you actually need them. Do not forget that this is a 100 energy cost ULTIMATE so having it be absolutely inferior from unreliability compared to another similar ability in cost and slot is NOT good. Being able to actually place one in the middle of a group at long range will also give another difference with vortex having the rather strong arc in the ball preventing effective long distance casts. Having tornadoes keep the enemies in the middle like vortex will solve all the problems about enemies going everywhere. The only other thing that would need to happen would be making tornadoes transparent to bullets so that you can still shoot the enemies in them while still taking on the elemental types of shots fire through them. So again, my idea works to solve unreliability that opposes users without leaving the ability entirely outclassed, or making it the center of her kit.

As for hurting zephyr, that isnt even possible when all the changes i described are direct BUFFS to her current effects and in no way could reduce her current impact unless a player went full negative duration which would make the suspend not last any time, but zephyr is a fairly duration centric frame so that seems unlikely

Edited December 24, 2017 by Kurayami_No_Yenshi

[PhoenixOfTheLost]

18 hours ago, Kurayami_No_Yenshi said:

The Zenurik effect is the best analog effect I can consider that lifts enemies in the air. When actually implemented, the idea is to have a wind effect lifting them like rising air currents or convection thermals. Divebomb cannot feasibly be made a damage ability, the fact that you need as much height as you do makes in absolutely ineffective on about 1/2 of the games rooms so having it make enemies entirely vulnerable at any height, in that they will be unable to move and have their head exposed, it makes a much better initiator as zephyr cannot deal with the enemies that will definitely survive if it was a damage ability as it would need incredibly high damage for an ability in this game. It would need damage in the realm that it could instantly kill all lvl50 trash mobs and do decent damage to heavies in its AOE with an achievable amount of power strength and time to actually set up like other damage abilities in game, and an ability like this will probably never get such base stats. I would much rather capitalize on her strength as a CC/defense frame than try and make her have an awkward and quick to fall off damage design. Dont forget that it does take a bit of time to get to a reasonable height even using her 1 and bullet jump and doing so will pull you away from any objective you are near and trying to redirect shots from with turbulence, so it would only make her more clunky to get effect out of. Having a hard CC effect that procs at any height tied to an ability to get down from heights fast gets zephyr 2 things, 1 a better crowd control effect that can be triggered from jumping and using 2 like can currently be spammed for knockdowns, and 2 the ability to reach the ground quickly if you were higher and needed to get down with her floaty passive.

Having the weightlessness tied to Tailwind would also put to much emphasis on one of her abilities while entirely forgetting about another. Also having enemies randomly drift everywhere from that would be just the same as Titanias' 1 and becomes counterproductive in actually dealing with enemies. I do understand some that wind is expected to be random in effect and wild, but wild effects simply do not have good actual effect and, this being a game, abilities need actual impact that doesnt directly oppose the players goal. Otherwise you get things like ragdoll on blast damage which become aggravating when an enemy shoots in a random direction when you needed to finish them, or simply shoots into space and will show up momentarily and still be a problem. Zephyr does not need to be more wild in her abilities, infact she needs the opposite as she does not have near the impact on her random or unreliable abilities like Divebomb and Tornadoes that a randomized effect would need to not be thrown away for a more effective frame. This is why I suggested having a fixed, or perhaps slightly bobbing suspend animation on her 2. It makes divebomb actually useful in common situations without taking anything from her already useful 1 and 3, It doesnt put too much emphasis an any one of her abilities, and it is consistent in its impact rather than unreliable like Titania 1 and ragdolls. So balanced ability value and useably reliable effect.

As for the comparisons with vauban, there are over 30 frames now, there is going to be overlap in the frames purposes and the overall effect of 2 frames, even with my concept, is still going to allow the frames to differentiate themselves. In this case, Tornadoes is NOT recastable as a reactive CC like vortex which you can reacast at will EXACTLY where you need to be. As for the target to cursor, that is so that high range builds dont suffer from the random spawning of tornadoes. with high range they will spawn randomly in an area up to 70 m, and with that large of an area, they will almost never spawn where you actually need them. Do not forget that this is a 100 energy cost ULTIMATE so having it be absolutely inferior from unreliability compared to another similar ability in cost and slot is NOT good. Being able to actually place one in the middle of a group at long range will also give another difference with vortex having the rather strong arc in the ball preventing effective long distance casts. Having tornadoes keep the enemies in the middle like vortex will solve all the problems about enemies going everywhere. The only other thing that would need to happen would be making tornadoes transparent to bullets so that you can still shoot the enemies in them while still taking on the elemental types of shots fire through them. So again, my idea works to solve unreliability that opposes users without leaving the ability entirely outclassed, or making it the center of her kit.

As for hurting zephyr, that isnt even possible when all the changes i described are direct BUFFS to her current effects and in no way could reduce her current impact unless a player went full negative duration which would make the suspend not last any time, but zephyr is a fairly duration centric frame so that seems unlikely

Alright, go with whatever you prefer. Not going to argue anymore because I rather not start a war of "This is useful and this isn't" when you're starting to attack the ideas on this thread and try to make your ideas sound superior.

 

I'm done with this thread, everything has been decided, no changes to me made here. Turning off notifications for it for that reason alone.

Edited December 25, 2017 by PhoenixOfTheLost