Zephyr Tweaks - Round 2

[Azamagon]

So, here I go again with trying to help Zephyr a bit (slightly different from before, and don't dare to bump the old one since it's from October last year).

I have two kinds of reworks for her:
1) A more radical rework, and
2) A "work with what we have"-rework.

In either of the reworks, Dive Bomb, Turbulence and Tornado would all be changed in the same way, so I'll start with those 3 abilities.

Dive Bomb - I honestly want this skill to remain in her kit. But as a good skill. So, the ideas are rather simple

• Damage scales with height, melee mods and the melee combo counter. Lower the base damage a bit, if necessary (as a small hop + Divebomb shouldn't be all too powerful). Making it deal potentially massive damage just makes sense considering the buildup it would require.
  EDIT: Alternatively, instead of scaling with melee mods and the melee combo counter, it could instead deal finisher damage (still scaling with height, ofc).
• AoE scales with range mods and height. The height bonus would have a cap though, max boosting the radius by 100% (that is, after range mods).
• Rename it (into, say, "Gale Force"?), and make the groundcast version a simple stomp or groundpunch (animation doesn't matter too much), but which still has quite some recovery time (so it's not too easy to spam)
  EDIT; For clarity, my old idea was to have its groundcast version to simply be what Tailwind does on the ground right now (i.e. launch straight up), but I dunno which option would be better in this case.
• Holdcasting it while in the air allows you to aim it a slight angle. The landing point would be visualized by an energycircle glowing on the ground.
  Tapcasting would still cause her to fly "straight" down.
• Augment: To improve its CC a bit; Now summons a highly transparent wind-vortex at her landing spot for a brief moment (like 1,5 seconds?) which continuously pulls enemies into it. (Note; This would work with the groundcast too, regardless of what that would be ("stomp" or "liftoff").

Turbulence - I think this is a really solid ability. It might have a few bugs (related to hitscan weapons) that needs ironing out, but other than that, it's fine.
IF I'd suggest something, it would be the ability to place the remaining Turbulence in the environment (by recasting it while it's already active, putting it at her current position), so it can work as a stationary shield too. But that'd probably be too strong, maybe? If not, I'd say; Max 1 Turbulence available at once (and Zephyr could then not wear one at the same time; If she rebuffs herself while one is in the environment, the one in the environment disappears).

Tornado - Currently, this ability is... not that great, but it's not downright horrible either. The potential is certainly there. Some changes that hopefully could make it a lot better:

• Most important addition: All damage dealt towards a Tornado will be instantly distributed evenly to the enemies caught in the Tornado, similar to Hydroid's Undertow. Enemies would be able to aid this damage too (thus making the Tornadoes into defensive pillars too, so to speak). I think this change alone would alleviate a LOT of its current annoyances.
  EDIT: Not to mention, this would really help her (and/or allies') aim, which would be especially useful while dashing around in the air, as aiming for a big Tornado would be vastly easier than aiming at the much smaller enemies beneath her.
• Second-most important addition: Recasting the ability ends it early. This is something I feel is a REALLY necessary change, and needs to be done asap, imo (even before any extensive rework is done). Shouldn't be too hard to code either, no?
• The Tornadoes will only be able to move within X range of the casting point. This radius' borders would have a faint glow, so you know within which area the Tornadoes will wander. Area is affected by Ability Range. Note, this range would still be rather huge, but now they would be more confined (and thus more controlled).
• The Tornadoes move a bit faster (just a little though).
• The Tornadoes try to more actively move towards and grab enemies within their allowed area.
• Magnetic damage now has the lowest change-priority.
• If Tornadoes are to still randomly fling enemies out from them, giving the enemies a minimum holdtime would be nice (i.e. the enemy WILL remain inside a Tornado for at least X seconds, this being affected by Power Duration). Once the enemy is flung out, it won't be "hunted" nor grabbable by a Tornado until it has fully stood up again.
• Augment: These small Tornadoes can now "grab" enemies too, but it holds the enemy very steadily in the middle of Tornado, and can only hold one enemy per Tornado. Further, these Tornadoes are MUCH faster than the basic ones, and they stay still once they catch an enemy (they start moving again if/when the enemy dies).

Now for the more difficult decisions to be made: Radical rework, or a simpler one?

So let's see how each one would pan out:
 

Rework 1 - The simpler one (working with what exists):

Tailwind - Just some easy changes that could be made:

• Reduce energycost, to like, 10?
  EDIT: That, or give it combocasting a la Atlas Landslide etc, at least for its energycosts.
  EDIT 2: If it was granted the energy combocasting, then Divebomb could both contribute to and benefit from this combocasting as well! (credit to @MrJxt)
• Tailwind has a MUCH wider wind-effect (affected by Power Range) to strike her enemies with, and enemies struck are now knocked down.
• Zephyr colliding directly with enemies will push them slightly to the side of her, allowing her to pass through them.
• Each enemy struck by Tailwind adds +1 to the melee combo counter
• In Tailwind's wake (wether used with the upright launch, or the dash-flight), aggressive winds could be left behind. These winds could slow enemies down and/or deal constant slash-damage.
  Possibly (which would keep its energy at 25), the lingering winds could, if they hurt enemies, continuously add +1 to the melee combo counter per enemy per second(!). This lingering combo build-up would allow for some seriously good Dive Bomb comboing (since it would now scale with melee combo points, among other things)
• Tailwind could potentially be heldcast, for continuous flight, draining a low amount of energy every second (say, 3/sec? Affected by efficiency ofc). However, this energydrain would NOT stop energygains, like EV etc, since it isn't a true toggle ability. Further, this flight would follow your cursor, and thus be steerable (albeit somewhat sluggishly with the turning). Note; Power Duration would affect the flightspeed of the continuous flight too, albeit not as much as it does for the "burstcast".
• Tailwind can be "stopped" early by simply moving the opposite direction (i.e. backwards), to let you control its momentum with ease.
• Tailwind no longer animation-locks you whatsoever, you can shoot guns etc during the entire flight time. (Call it "onehanded" if you will). You could even transition into parkour seemlessly due to this (such as flying into a wall = you can instantly wallcling or wallrun on it)

Passive - Along with the low gravity, I'd like to add this as well: Zephyr also has vastly increased aimglide duration (like +200% time?)

Rework 2 - The more radical one:

Passive - Along with her low gravity (and possibly increased aimglide duration), Tailwind also becomes part of her passive. How does it work? Well, simply hold jump to fly continuously forward! This would be very similar to the above suggested Tailwind's continuous flight, albeit a few things would NOT exist on it; It deals no damage, it provides no melee combo boosting, nor does it leave aggressive winds in its wake, and its speed is now instead adjusted with movespeed and/or bulletjump mods (whatever fits better). The knockdown could still remain I guess, but its "widened" effect wouldn't be added either.
Or, even simpler: Give her unlimited midair bulletjumps! (Which could potentially have a unique, quicker animation). This would probably be much easier to implement, and would also be very easy to use (just hold crouch or toggle on crouch while in midair, then spam jump for multiple consecutive bulletjumps).
Note; If instead given unlimited bulletjumps, I'd STILL suggest for her to be granted increased aimglide duration too, as they are such complimentary effects.

This leaves her with an empty ability slot. I'd suggest to move Dive Bomb to be her #1 ability, while adding this simplistic ability as her #2 ability:

Cyclone
50 energy
Casting mechanics: Casts a thick ball of wind which travels forward towards where you have aimed it. It flies through the air freely like a projectile, but if it hits the ground, it will continue to travel along the ground (similar to Ice Wave / Condemn) for the remainder of its duration (so, it's a projectile AND a "wave", so to speak). If it hits a wall which it cannot traverse over, it will stop early. Further, recasting the ability ends its travel early as well.
Effects: Enemies caught in its wake will continuously be dragged into its centre, in a ragdoll fashion. Each enemy gathered adds +1/2/3/4 to the melee combo counter.
Purpose: To keep enemies gathered, and away from Zephyr (since melee range is her main weakpoint). Really good as a cast before (or after) setting up a Divebomb (due to the combo counter buildup and gathering effect), and/or to redirect enemies into Tornadoes (Note: The Tornadoes' "grip" will have higher priority). Can also work well as a melee-aiding tool.
Extra synergy: If a Cyclone hits a Tornado, each enemy which was in the Tornado will count as a "hit" for the Cyclone and its melee combo counter boosting purposes.
Modding: Range adds to its gathering radius, Duration increases its lifetime and thus also its max distance, Strength improves the combo counter benefits (rounds up).

What do you think?
If you had to pick, which rework would you pick; The simple one, or the "radical" one?

@Thaylien @Renovakunumaru @Caelward @Zephyr-Prime (and all other Zephyr enthusiasts which I don't recall the names of), I summon you (again)! :D

 

Edited January 30, 2018 by Azamagon

[INight00]

Dive Bomb:
This would make dependency on dealing high damage on the melee combo counter, what if you run in a mission without said weapon?
It should scale with height, will need a formula where x height = y multiplication. Sounds simple enough.
Ground based dive bomb doesn't sound too bad. If anything it will be like the other abilities where you wait about 2-5 seconds before being able to reuse/ animation ends.
I remember seeing someone wanting to make it into an airstrike ability, so you can use it in the air and use it on the ground. In the air tap to summon air strike, hold to charge down with the airstrike.

Turbulence:
Bugs should be gone soon... should.
The placing the turbulence aura on a location is a good idea. But if it didn't already, it would encourage high range builds.
No problems here.

Tornadoes:
Don't they spawn on enemy locations, wouldn't it be hard to see all the circles on vertical maps?
I agree with most of it.
Tornadoes that pull enemies in and can have damage spread on it, sounds good. But, if the damage spread isn't allowed, maybe the tornadoes can pull enemies in and hold them in the center to keep them from flailing around on the way up before being launched out. Further, maybe the status proc-ing of the tornadoes can be more violent. So, if you proc radiation or corrosive, the tornadoes can and will remove armour as opposed to dealing vasts amounts of damage.

--Radicalization transition --- -
Tailwind:
Apart from going forward across maps or through enemies, the tailwind at the moment is unnecessary. Bullet jumps already do it, as does Rhinos charge.
The hold to fly looks like it could be implemented, only fault is the melee counter again. Also, it seems like a long aim-glide.

I like radical rework 2 passive... yes.

Cyclone... This sounds familiar. Very.
I made a warframe concept called Solstice. Using Equinox's format, they utilize with hot and cold (status), Hurricane is their last ability. Depending on form determines if the ability will pull or push.

If I didn't know any better it would seem like you are trying to make a warframe similar to Loki that has no dependency on power strength.
But, can achieve great amount of power with a combo counter so long as the player has melee weapon... condition overload/ maiming.

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/845907-warframe-concept-solstice/

 

Edited January 16, 2018 by INight00
.White Text link for Solstice Concept. Hurricane.

[Azamagon]

Just now, INight00 said:

I think you mean round lost count.

I meant MY round 2 :P

(Also, looking forward to seeing your later productive comment, as per your edit-note)

[FAZZWARFRAME]

triple jump...

[INight00]

52 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

I meant MY round 2 :P

Ah, of course.

[Darkvramp]

In my opinion Zephyr needs a jetpack.

It only activates after jumping, unless already in the air, (this is to allow for the current parkour system), and you must hold it to activate it and it is directional, where you point your cursor is where you will travel. This drains a meter, not energy or anything, that will refill within 5 to 10 seconds when drained or will refill immediately if not drained.

In comes her passive which should be increased to make her float more and allow her more freedom of movement while floating. Aim gliding is to be given the same treatment to allow you to hopefully travel long distances.

Coming to her first ability it is likely that her 1st and 2nd ability are to be combined, made directional, and chargeable. So you can use this to gain height, in any direction, at the same time you can just use this to move across the ground if you wanted to, when in the air if you want to go to the ground you just look at it and slam into it (some tweaks could come into play like if you have your melee weapon out your slam melee effect is added into the damage range, so if you say do a flame slam, so will your 1), all the while this can be charged for extra damage and range of effect (slamming into the ground rag dolls enemies) when charging you are held in the air until release of the ability as it consume extra energy for more damage and range.

Her now liquidated second ability needs to be replaced with a new one. In my opinion it would be nice if it were a support themed ability. All the rest of her kit seems selfish, so why not give her an area of effect that steals the "breath" of enemies causing them to have to stop, crouch, or bend over, and catch their breath, while they are “suffocating” they will take additional damage from any status, (all the while they are not shooting their weapons at you). This entire process can be determined but I proposed while in the area of effect, enemies take 3 seconds before losing their breath, take five seconds (the stun) before recovering their breath, this can be affected by duration, both reducing the duration necessary for the enemy to lose their breath and the duration of the stun.

Now for the support side, after the breaths are stolen they are placed in a pool that after reaching 10 or so breaths stolen, a pulse of 250 shield and health at base (rank zero frame) is sent from Zephyr to teammates within affinity range, this can be affected by power strength. If teammates are at max shield it is added as over shield until their max over shield

Turbulence needs to start with the augment being rolled into the ability innately, as the base ability is not strong enough on its own. Second, turbulence needs to grant a buff or effect to whatever weapon you are using, like if you are using a burst rifle and you get an extra phantom bullet in your burst, or when using charge attack or get a free shorter-range Excalibur like wind wave, or if you channel with your melee and turbulence up and hit an enemy, you steal the breath from an enemy adding to your breath pool. Unique stuff like this

Finally, tornado, the worst things about tornado are the displacement of enemies, the absolute minimal damage that each tornado can deal to an enemy, and the unpredictability of the tornadoes. First suggestion is the tornados need to act in a manner I can control. So how about adding in a selector like Vauban has, so by pressing the ability it toggles between a few differing options, like making the tornadoes follow Zephyr around in a line, or having them run around in an area in a concentric circle, or if you wanted to have them act as they do now, its not about that they are random, its that if they are random, I made them so, not that they are random and I have no control over that whatsoever.

                        Secondly, they need to debuff the resistances of enemies, if  an enemy has 50% resistance to an element it needs to strip that from the enemy for x amount of seconds affected by duration and strength, even going so far as to give it a weakness if it reduces the resistance below 0%.

            Lastly, tornadoes need to not throw enemies like they do now, it does not work for us, it makes it harder to kill that enemy, and that enemy can get up, and continue to shoot at me from a new location that I do not know about, so there is that.

Final note tornadoes in real life are natural disasters, tornadoes in game are like asmr YouTube girls whispering in your ears.

 

 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Darkvramp

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

I didn't forget about this. I've just been super busy. A couple of things I want to address but it'll have to wait until later in the day.

[Azzaruth]

A lot of these suggestions aren't really bad, they are technically improvements. But at the same time, a lot of them don't really help Zephyr in any way. For example, the ground cast for Divebomb would not only be a poor man's Rhino Stomp, but it would also lock Zephyr into place, and the last thing Zephyr needs is being locked into place anywhere. And Divebomb itself does next to no damage to begin with, so lowering the damage isn't really needed. To be honest, damage is irrelevant, unless it is widespread and cuts through walls like Saryn's Spore, Ember's World on Fire, +Range rivens on a Scoliac/Guando, and so on. A divebomb can one shot enemies it lands on and still be pretty "meh". The recovery, range, and CC of it just don't justify the cast over using something such as a Tailwind into a Scoliac spin attack for offense. 

Being able to place a turbulence would also be nice, but then it would mostly be a buffed up version of Snowglobe which it doesn't really need. Turbulence is in a nice place right now. Being able to recast it before it ends however would be a much better buff to the power.

As for Tailwind, I would suggest a diminishing cost when recast as it will overall be a bit cheaper over the course of a chain rather than a false toggle. The most energy efficient way to travel over something like the plains is Tailwind Then into a Gliding air kick, then back into Tailwind. With a diminishing cost, each cast will cost only 4.3 energy per cast with just streamline after the second one. Rest of it is fine, damage is pretty irrelevant for it, but not useless.

And yes for the aimglide along with the lowered gravity, it would be very helpful.

But no to the radical changes since DE has stated they won't do those anymore. Though I do admit I prefer Cyclone over Tornado, but I dislike the passive change to the radical one.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

I don't think there should every be an instance where a straight down divebomb is necessary. Having it follow the reticle is good enough imo.

I don't think the turbulence idea is necessary either. The skill reasons as a strong defensive skill with a really good augment.

Otherwise I support the melee scaling from dive bomb but at this point we are just recycling ideas now? Not that they don't need to be said. A great idea  should be repeated just as much as the bad ideas (make Zephyr fly, remove her passive).

Im just patiently waiting for DE to step in but if the dev stream was any indication, DE we'll be reviewing threads now as opposed to earlier considering they have nothing to discuss with Zephyr except "a lot of frames need tweaks".

 

 

[Azamagon]

On 2018-01-15 at 11:58 PM, INight00 said:

Dive Bomb:
This would make dependency on dealing high damage on the melee combo counter, what if you run in a mission without said weapon?
It should scale with height, will need a formula where x height = y multiplication. Sounds simple enough.
Ground based dive bomb doesn't sound too bad. If anything it will be like the other abilities where you wait about 2-5 seconds before being able to reuse/ animation ends.
I remember seeing someone wanting to make it into an airstrike ability, so you can use it in the air and use it on the ground. In the air tap to summon air strike, hold to charge down with the airstrike.

Turbulence:
Bugs should be gone soon... should.
The placing the turbulence aura on a location is a good idea. But if it didn't already, it would encourage high range builds.
No problems here.

Tornadoes:
Don't they spawn on enemy locations, wouldn't it be hard to see all the circles on vertical maps?
I agree with most of it.
Tornadoes that pull enemies in and can have damage spread on it, sounds good. But, if the damage spread isn't allowed, maybe the tornadoes can pull enemies in and hold them in the center to keep them from flailing around on the way up before being launched out. Further, maybe the status proc-ing of the tornadoes can be more violent. So, if you proc radiation or corrosive, the tornadoes can and will remove armour as opposed to dealing vasts amounts of damage.

--Radicalization transition --- -
Tailwind:
Apart from going forward across maps or through enemies, the tailwind at the moment is unnecessary. Bullet jumps already do it, as does Rhinos charge.
The hold to fly looks like it could be implemented, only fault is the melee counter again. Also, it seems like a long aim-glide.

I like radical rework 2 passive... yes.

Cyclone... This sounds familiar. Very.
I made a warframe concept called Solstice. Using Equinox's format, they utilize with hot and cold (status), Hurricane is their last ability. Depending on form determines if the ability will pull or push.

If I didn't know any better it would seem like you are trying to make a warframe similar to Loki that has no dependency on power strength.
But, can achieve great amount of power with a combo counter so long as the player has melee weapon... condition overload/ maiming.

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/845907-warframe-concept-solstice/

 

DB:
Scaling with melee mods and not being able to scale from those because of that is a bummer, yes (I actually kind want it NOT to scale with melee mods cuz of this, and instead just vastly improved its height scaling). But in regards to the melee combo counter; Those issues are covered either by Tailwind (in the conservative version) or by Cyclone (in the radical rework) :)
Also, sidenote; I first wanted tailwinds upwards jump to be what Divebomb's groundcast should be. But then I realized that could come back to haunt you (you wanna go UP, instead of down, but due to her slowgravity-passive combined with a tiny ledge and it could mess with your travelling). I'm still considering that version for DB.
However, currently in place I had this "stomp" idea. And yeah, it should probably have a short cooldown, for sure (2 seconds sounds enough) to avoid spamming.

How would this "airstrike" be? Like jets / bomb-projectiles made of air?

Turbulence:
Glad you like it :)

Tornado:
Yeah, they spawn on enemy locations (and still should), but would have a limitted area to move within. Hmmm... yeah, you're right, the circles would be kind of hard to see on vertical maps. But better than nothing, no?
The problem with having them only hold enemies still, especially if in the centre of the tornado, is that you wouldn't be able to shoot them (at least with the current Tornadoes, because they count as entities, and thus obstruct shots, but only for Zephyr and her allies, ofc -.-)
And what do you mean with the procs? They DO proc elemental effects, quite plentifully even.

Conservative -> Tailwind
How is the melee counter at fault with continuous flight? Oo

Radical -> Passive
Glad you like it! :)

Radical -> Cyclone
Ummm... well, only partly similar. My idea is more like a shortlasting "Vauban's Vortex"-projectile. Yours is an aura with various effects (including push or pull). So, yes and no?

I'm definitely not trying to make a "low ability strength"-frame, where'd you get that idea from? All her abilities (except Turbulence, unless you include its augment) have rather nice boosting from Strength, mostly so Divebomb of course (I forgot to add; I think, if it doesn't already, that Tornado's status chance should scale with Ability Strength).
 

On 2018-01-16 at 3:22 AM, Darkvramp said:

In my opinion Zephyr needs a jetpack.

It only activates after jumping, unless already in the air, (this is to allow for the current parkour system), and you must hold it to activate it and it is directional, where you point your cursor is where you will travel. This drains a meter, not energy or anything, that will refill within 5 to 10 seconds when drained or will refill immediately if not drained.

In comes her passive which should be increased to make her float more and allow her more freedom of movement while floating. Aim gliding is to be given the same treatment to allow you to hopefully travel long distances.

Coming to her first ability it is likely that her 1st and 2nd ability are to be combined, made directional, and chargeable. So you can use this to gain height, in any direction, at the same time you can just use this to move across the ground if you wanted to, when in the air if you want to go to the ground you just look at it and slam into it (some tweaks could come into play like if you have your melee weapon out your slam melee effect is added into the damage range, so if you say do a flame slam, so will your 1), all the while this can be charged for extra damage and range of effect (slamming into the ground rag dolls enemies) when charging you are held in the air until release of the ability as it consume extra energy for more damage and range.

Her now liquidated second ability needs to be replaced with a new one. In my opinion it would be nice if it were a support themed ability. All the rest of her kit seems selfish, so why not give her an area of effect that steals the "breath" of enemies causing them to have to stop, crouch, or bend over, and catch their breath, while they are “suffocating” they will take additional damage from any status, (all the while they are not shooting their weapons at you). This entire process can be determined but I proposed while in the area of effect, enemies take 3 seconds before losing their breath, take five seconds (the stun) before recovering their breath, this can be affected by duration, both reducing the duration necessary for the enemy to lose their breath and the duration of the stun.

Now for the support side, after the breaths are stolen they are placed in a pool that after reaching 10 or so breaths stolen, a pulse of 250 shield and health at base (rank zero frame) is sent from Zephyr to teammates within affinity range, this can be affected by power strength. If teammates are at max shield it is added as over shield until their max over shield

Turbulence needs to start with the augment being rolled into the ability innately, as the base ability is not strong enough on its own. Second, turbulence needs to grant a buff or effect to whatever weapon you are using, like if you are using a burst rifle and you get an extra phantom bullet in your burst, or when using charge attack or get a free shorter-range Excalibur like wind wave, or if you channel with your melee and turbulence up and hit an enemy, you steal the breath from an enemy adding to your breath pool. Unique stuff like this

Finally, tornado, the worst things about tornado are the displacement of enemies, the absolute minimal damage that each tornado can deal to an enemy, and the unpredictability of the tornadoes. First suggestion is the tornados need to act in a manner I can control. So how about adding in a selector like Vauban has, so by pressing the ability it toggles between a few differing options, like making the tornadoes follow Zephyr around in a line, or having them run around in an area in a concentric circle, or if you wanted to have them act as they do now, its not about that they are random, its that if they are random, I made them so, not that they are random and I have no control over that whatsoever.

                        Secondly, they need to debuff the resistances of enemies, if  an enemy has 50% resistance to an element it needs to strip that from the enemy for x amount of seconds affected by duration and strength, even going so far as to give it a weakness if it reduces the resistance below 0%.

            Lastly, tornadoes need to not throw enemies like they do now, it does not work for us, it makes it harder to kill that enemy, and that enemy can get up, and continue to shoot at me from a new location that I do not know about, so there is that.

Final note tornadoes in real life are natural disasters, tornadoes in game are like asmr YouTube girls whispering in your ears.

 

 

Gonna reply somewhat quickly to this one:

First off; Jet pack? On a wind elemental frame. That sounds very redundant. Unless you mean just mechanically, but not literally? Still, doesn't that make Tailwind somewhat redundant as well..?

Second; Merging Tailwind and Divebomb has ALWAYS been a horrible idea ( @Thaylien has excellently explained why so many times by now, so I'm really tired of hearing this bad suggestion over and over again. It's a popular suggestion, but it's still a bad one). On top of that, yours sounds incredibly uncontrollable with its chargemechanic. If you REALLY had to merge them why not simply "hold-to-fly-in-aimed-direction", then add the shockwave whenever you impact with an enemy or environment (which still wouldn't be great, but would be far more userfriendly), with a very small energydrain per distance (the drain that still allows energyregen, mind you)?

The replacement ability is ok though, I guess? While it does fit the wind-thematic, how does it help her kit? How does it "mesh"? The Tornado's status damage?
Slapping together random abilities (not saying yours is totally random, it's at least not a completely redundant one, credits where it's due) is how you get 'frames like Vauban and Titania -> 'frames that need a VERY thorough look at, as they lack synergy / have tons of redundant abilities (or even have anti-synergy, as is the case with Titaina).

Third; Turbulence is REALLY strong on its own... augment definitely does NOT need to be baked in. It's one of the better defensive abilities in the game, really. The rest you suggested is also rather overkill (could become alternative augments, at best).

And while I can see you doing some mechanical synergies with the "breath" mechanic, but it seems a bit tacked on, don't you think? Does she really need to add support in the form of healing, I mean? Sure, that's actually quite nice, but considering the extremely powerful defense from Turbulence, it feels a tad overkill imo. I dunno, somehow it just doesn't feel right... but that's just me *shrugs*

Fourth; Tornado... PLEASE NO, NOT VAUBAN-MINELAYER-SELECTION! (Personal gripe incoming)
Look, Vauban needs to have that multi-choice-part of Minelayer scrapped (with a "quality over quantity"-approach), so I really think it should NOT be encouraged on more frames. The reason it can work well with Ivara is because 1) she has stealth (so she can take her time) 2) she has Artemis Bow, which allows quickcasting with its altfire 3) it fits the thematic of an archer's quiver (it's a slight nod at Hawkeye (or arrow-variability in general, really)).
That said, having some control over the Tornadoes is understandable, but it could (or rather, SHOULD) be done in other ways than the Quiver/Minelayer-way. Which is what my anchoring area was trying to aid with, while still keeping its somewhat chaotic nature (which is highly fitting for Tornadoes)

20 hours ago, Zephyr-Prime said:

A lot of these suggestions aren't really bad, they are technically improvements. But at the same time, a lot of them don't really help Zephyr in any way. For example, the ground cast for Divebomb would not only be a poor man's Rhino Stomp, but it would also lock Zephyr into place, and the last thing Zephyr needs is being locked into place anywhere. And Divebomb itself does next to no damage to begin with, so lowering the damage isn't really needed. To be honest, damage is irrelevant, unless it is widespread and cuts through walls like Saryn's Spore, Ember's World on Fire, +Range rivens on a Scoliac/Guando, and so on. A divebomb can one shot enemies it lands on and still be pretty "meh". The recovery, range, and CC of it just don't justify the cast over using something such as a Tailwind into a Scoliac spin attack for offense. 

Being able to place a turbulence would also be nice, but then it would mostly be a buffed up version of Snowglobe which it doesn't really need. Turbulence is in a nice place right now. Being able to recast it before it ends however would be a much better buff to the power.

As for Tailwind, I would suggest a diminishing cost when recast as it will overall be a bit cheaper over the course of a chain rather than a false toggle. The most energy efficient way to travel over something like the plains is Tailwind Then into a Gliding air kick, then back into Tailwind. With a diminishing cost, each cast will cost only 4.3 energy per cast with just streamline after the second one. Rest of it is fine, damage is pretty irrelevant for it, but not useless.

And yes for the aimglide along with the lowered gravity, it would be very helpful.

But no to the radical changes since DE has stated they won't do those anymore. Though I do admit I prefer Cyclone over Tornado, but I dislike the passive change to the radical one.

Groundcast Divebomb was meant more as a "minimal effect Divebomb", more than anything else (also, read my response to INight00, about the placeholder-thing)
And... how is damage EVER irrelevant in Warframe? Oo
Scaling with melee mods and melee combo and height and ability strength... you don't see that as being a potentially ANNIHILITING ability (which requires some prep-work, yes, but still). Also, note that I said the range would also scale with height (up to a cap), besides, range can be increased by default too.
Plus, why compare it to some of most boring meta-cheese in the game?? You just seem REALLY pessimistic in regards to Divebomb, somehow.

Turbulence placeable would arguably be quite overpowered (which is why I wasn't sure about the idea), but it does have definite weaknesses; Melee is still completely unhindered. Close range fire could still be damaging you (I guess, at least it SHOULD, for balance's sake) and it does not impede enemies whatsoever (meaning, it has 0 CC in it).
The only reason I'd like this is, basicly, to give Frost a real run for his money in terms of defending static points. Only contestants are Volt, Limbo and quite far back, Gara, and Frost generally is just the easiest to use in most situations, compared to the others. Zephyr is definitely up there, but if defending a spot she then can't move around much, which was another reason for this idea; Allow defending a spot, while retaining mobility, but at the cost of your personally carried defense)
Still, it's something that can be scrapped entirely, yeah.

As for Tailwind; You mean combocasting, a la Landslide or Rhino Charge? That'd be ok I guess *shrugs*
And yes, damage is indeed entirely irrelevant for it (as the damage-emphasis I put on Dive Bomb instead), it's meant for various other utilities (I guess you could tell that was my intention for it too?).

So, if they'd REGARDLESS of their statements would be able add Cyclone somehow (in a way you'd like with the other abilities along in there), you'd not complain, is what you're saying? :P
I know about their current refusal to more thoroughly revamp stuff (which, honestly, sounds like laziness and/or pride more than anything else), which is why I had both approaches added (hoping to convince them to change their stubborn opinion, as futile of an attempt as that may be for me. Won't die from trying though, heh).

As for the radical passive, what part of it do you not like? How it is performed, or what it does, or even both?

4 hours ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

I don't think there should every be an instance where a straight down divebomb is necessary. Having it follow the reticle is good enough imo.

I don't think the turbulence idea is necessary either. The skill reasons as a strong defensive skill with a really good augment.

Otherwise I support the melee scaling from dive bomb but at this point we are just recycling ideas now? Not that they don't need to be said. A great idea  should be repeated just as much as the bad ideas (make Zephyr fly, remove her passive).

Im just patiently waiting for DE to step in but if the dev stream was any indication, DE we'll be reviewing threads now as opposed to earlier considering they have nothing to discuss with Zephyr except "a lot of frames need tweaks".

 

 

Straight down Divebomb has been very useful to me personally, plenty of times. Being able to go straight down, regardless of where I have been looking, is what makes it handy for me, as that has really aided me in regards to quickly adjusting your position/mobility and such.

Turbulence, see my response about it which I gave to Zephyr-Prime.

Divebomb -> I honestly feel a tad lukewarm about it myself. At least in regards to the melee MOD scaling (the melee combo counter can at least be added somewhat neatly, due to stuff I suggested with Cyclone/Tailwind). I dunno. I'm still on the fence on how to make it scale better, without making it totally overpowered/underpowered. It just FEELS like it should be a highly damaging ability, at least. (Especially considering that DE themselves have even implemented a damage scaling in it (with height), even if it is currently a really bad scaling).

I'm also eager to hear what the devs are gonna do to Zephyr. But I'm more afraid than excited, considering their latest "reworks" (which, yes, have made pretty much all those Warframes more powerful, but not necessarily better designed. Which is why I'm so bothered by the whole "we're not doing kit changes, just tweaks"-attitude, urgh)

Edited January 18, 2018 by Azamagon

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

3 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

Straight down Divebomb has been very useful to me, plenty of times. Regardless of where I have been looking, is what makes its "straight down"-so handy for, at the very least, adjusting and aiding your mobility and such.

If you intent to go down wouldn't you look down to see what's there?

 

5 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

I dunno. I'm still on the fence on how to make it scale better, without making it totally overpowered/underpowered.

As long as it scales with mods and melee combo counter it's damage will be enough for most content especially as an AoE skill. For enemies that have armor Zephyr still has access to weapons to strip that (I personally use staticor because of synergy) to keep dive bombs damage viable. 

At first I thought the more powerful but not improved design was lazy however upon reserving outspoken judgement I can say it's the right decision.

The idea is what I've been preaching in my 1st rework thread from the start in which a Warframes moveset should be enhanced, not altered in order to appease it's base, fix faults and potentially attract a new audience.

We are all not going to like every kit we play with because we all have different tastes. I think that's the bigger take away from a rework. I have friends now that love playing Hydroid with his buffed kit despite it being much of the same.

So despite what DE does, as long as they leave Zephyrs lot on tact and make changes to certain functionalities while keeping it's core, she'll be alright 

[Azamagon]

1 minute ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

1) If you intent to go down wouldn't you look down to see what's there?

 

2) As long as it scales with mods and melee combo counter it's damage will be enough for most content especially as an AoE skill.

3) For enemies that have armor Zephyr still has access to weapons to strip that (I personally use staticor because of synergy) to keep dive bombs damage viable. 

4) At first I thought the more powerful but not improved design was lazy however upon reserving outspoken judgement I can say it's the right decision.

The idea is what I've been preaching in my 1st rework thread from the start in which a Warframes moveset should be enhanced, not altered in order to appease it's base, fix faults and potentially attract a new audience.

We are all not going to like every kit we play with because we all have different tastes. I think that's the bigger take away from a rework. I have friends now that love playing Hydroid with his buffed kit despite it being much of the same.

So despite what DE does, as long as they leave Zephyrs lot on tact and make changes to certain functionalities while keeping it's core, she'll be alright 

1) Maybe surprisingly, but no. Not as much as you'd think at least, once you get used to it. Might be due to me, despite playing this game for so long, being rather clumsy with parkour. Divebomb have helped me correct mistakes far more times than I can count (yes, while NOT looking downwards, or at the very least often not looking down in a sharp angle (I tend to keep my aim a slight bit below the horizon most of the time))

2) Hmmm... I guess.

3) Sidetrack note: I'd also recommend Pox for armor stripping. Very awesome weapon for Zephyr!

4) Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't mean super-radical reworks like Limbo's (Stasis, more or less, could've been added in place of just making Rift Walk his passive, but the Banish and Rift Surge changes where basicly completely unneeded). I meant more along the lines of Rhino (Roar in place of his old Radial Blast, which got merged with Rhino Stomp), Excal (getting Exalted Blade to replace Super Jump, which everyone has access to since parkour 2.0) and such.
Basicly; Improve the core, but integrate stuff that is currently nigh-obsolete as energy-costing abilities (such as mentioned, bullet jump being part of EVERYONE's kit, making Super Jump highly redundant, or Limbo's new passive, which I find like an awesome approach for Zephyr's Tailwind too, which would still leave her core intact).

The reason I have some gripes with some of the newer "reworks", just to give examples:
* Ash -> Bladestorm didn't have any of its REAL issues fixed, it just got new ones instead. Shuriken is still junk. The other 2 got better though.
* Mirage -> The jewels on SoH are neat... but they can blind enemies. Then... Prism anyone? Why the redundancy?
* Oberon -> Hallowed Ground is basicly just a "use me for synergy"-ability, which is really lame (it could do so much more interesting things by itself!). Reckoning STILL needs to KILL to spawn health-orbs, but SMITE got the scaling damage... something went amiss there, don't you think? Note, I'm not saying that Reckoning needs to have scaling damage, rather that the health-orb thing shouldn't need a KILL from Reckoning.
* Hydroid -> Overall very powerful now... but at the cost of being clunkier than ever (charge-attacks didn't really fit on him, at all). And there's STILL a ton of redundancy and anti-synergy issues with his kit, which are all really obvious (except for DE ofc -.-)

So eh... I don't have high hopes at all for ANY rework they are doing these days. Just lots of fear of ruination :/

[MrJxt]

0.) Passive

Problems:

-Lower gravity is annoying when you don't need it.
-Doesn't affect her bullet jump distance and speed despite being the 'lighter' than other Warframes.
-Landing from high heights force a heavy landing despite being 'lighter' than other Warframes.

Suggestions:
-Disable lower gravity by sliding in mid-air.
-Increase aim glide duration.
-Improve bullet jump via further traversal and/or animation speed.
-Remove hard landing from high heights.

1.) Tailwind

Problems:
-Was designed around parkour 1.0 and did not age well when parkour 2.0 was released.
-Higher duration builds lock you into a longer animation compared to lower duration. This means that casting tailwind into an obstacle will cause you to get 'stuck' momentarily.
-Does not retain momentum from mid-air cast. She flies quickly in one direction then stops completely once the animation ends.
-Damage/crowd control is very lacking.
-Requires considerable amount of energy for its distance travelled. Bullet jumping with a +24% to bullet jump mod covers roughly the same distance as 200% duration tailwind. Also, Rhino Charge and Tidal Surge have faster horizontal traversal.

Suggestions:
-Improve travel distance and speed similar to Rhino Charge and Tidal Surge's improvements.
-Allow Zephyr to retain some momentum after casting tailwind.
-Keep animation/cast time consistent regardless of power duration.
-Flying past nearby enemies should also push them away(impact proc).
-Any Enemy that receive a head-on collision (in your crosshair) should be ragdolled/knocked down and take additional damage.
-Tailwind should ignore unit collision, which will improve traversing in small and crowded corridors.
-Add an energy counter combo similar to Atlas's landslide and Valkyr's Ripline, consecutive casts in quick succession will lower energy cost.

2.) Divebomb

Problems:
-A simple second ability that is greatly hindered by its low range.
-Has damage scaling based on height activation but is capped at 15m.

Suggestions:
-Increase the knockdown range from 4/5/6/7m to 8/9/10/12m.
-Increase the bonus damage scaling from activation height.
-Increase or remove the 15m bonus damage cap.
-Slightly increase diving speed.
-Add an optimal impact range that increases damage and knockdown duration in a small radius.
-If Tailwind receives an energy combo counter then allow divebomb to benefit and contribute to it as well.

3.) Turbulence

Arguably the only ability keeping Zephyr relevant.

Suggestions:
-Provides Zephyr with additional projectile speed 10/15/20/25%.
-Provides Zephyr with additonal movement speed 5/6/8/10%.

*Projectile and movement speed scale with power strength.

Jetstream augment:
-Quadruples the buff strengths from Turbulence. Allies within range will also receive its benefits. (basically the current Jetstream)
-Allies who leave the buff range will have the effects linger for 5s instead of 3s.

*This lowers the necessity of the augment to obtain additional projectile/movement speed for yourself and puts a bigger emphasis on choosing to buff your squad. "Should I use Jetstream to strengthen Turbulence's effects and buff my squad or use that mod slot for something else?"

4.) Tornado

Good idea but unreliable crowd control and often annoying when used.

Problems:
-Cannot be disabled without falling out of bounds, high duration builds suffer greatly because of this.
-Scatters enemies everywhere, which is annoying if you want/need to kill them.
-Low damage and hard to damage enemies in tornados.
-Hitting a tornado can only change the elemental type based on elemental priority but does not provide additional damage.
-Very slow movement speed.

Suggestions:
-Increase the number of tornados from 2/2/3/4 to 2/3/4/5.
-Similar to Hydroid's undertow, you and your allies can attack a tornado and distribute a percentage of the damage dealt evenly to all enemies trapped in a tornado.
-Increase the tornadoes' movement speed to aid with seeking and trapping enemies.
-Recasting Tornado while it is active or when the duration expires will cause a radial windwave causing knockdown and deals 125/150/200/250 impact damage to all enemies within 10m of a tornado. Damage stacks if enemies are hit by multiple nearby tornados.

Funnel Clouds augment:
-Creates 10 instead of 8 small tornados.
-Increase movement speed.
-Each tornado should slowly pull enemies within 5m towards it similar to Zenurik's Void Singularity.
-Inherits the same mechanics as tornado without picking up enemies.
-Increase status chance.

 

Edited January 19, 2018 by MrJxt

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

16 hours ago, Azamagon said:

Pox for armor

I try not to use the same weapon on any of my loadouts. Already have pic of another Warframe loadout.

Well Scott said he's already submitted revision 1 of Zephyr for testing so here's to hope.

Edited January 19, 2018 by (PS4)RenovaKunumaru

[RHuckebein]

Tailwind

If you're going to make a change to tailwind's cost, and you want zephyr to have literally any niche at all, then in all seriousness it should cost 0.  It should be an actually free ability.  Bullet Jumping is free, and summoning an archwing on the plains is functionally free.  Sure you can tailwind repeatedly, but there are frames in this game that can just actually fly now (all of them, on the plains) so who cares?

The absolute worst-case scenario for a viable tailwind cost is giving it a combo mechanic where each cast costs less after you use it that resets when you touch the ground (and Riven unlocks clearly reveal that warframe already has 'resets when you touch the ground' code in it).  10 energy is far too much for tailwind if it's supposed to be one of her signature abilties, especially since you can't put high efficiency on zephyr without also slowing her down since tailwind travel speed is duration-based.

 

Divebomb

Divebomb has ALSO been bad since parkour 2.0, since there was actually one good build to use it, which was max range divebomb vortexe and a short-slide weapon to spin in place.  You'd pull an entire room into you and then shred them with spin attacks.  After parkour 2.0 killed variable spin attack distance in order to kill coptering, she lost the 'spin in place' part of the zephyr blender, and coincidentally at the same time divebomb vortex stopped pulling things 'to' you and just started ragdolling them all the way across the room.

Right now, Divebomb's literal only use is spamming shorthop/divebombs with Divebomb Vortex to ragdoll enemies for CC purposes.  Which is fine, but it isn't particularly fun or engaging and doesn't really convey 'flight' or 'wind' since you're basically just making earthquakes at that point.  If you aren't using high-range divebomb vortex it is an actually useless move, and even worse than that it's almost an unsalvagable one.  If the only thing being changed about divebomb vortex is the numbers, the only way to fix it is to make it do massively overpowered damage because the targeting and setup are so bad.  If it isn't doing infinite scaling damage in the vein of 'If you hit an enemy,  Divebomb could gain the text 'if you hit an enemy with divebomb, deal finisher damage equal to a percentage of its max HP to everything in the area of effect' and it would still only be an okay ability.  It's bad.

 

Turbulence

Turbulence is okay, I guess.  I can't really think of any changes that need to be made for it other than 'to work properly.'  I'd rather see jet stream built in as a core function of the ability and the augment do something else so it'd be less boring, but the ability is actually pretty good and lets you mod projectile flight speed with a warframe slot already so that's not really necessary.

Tornado

Tornado is a weak damage ability mixed with an unreliable CC ability.  It does multiple things and doesn't do any of them well.  It would be better if it were focused on either the damage OR CC effect and then the augment switched it to being better at the other one, but there's a million different ways to go with it.  Right now it's best use is just to use it for the CC and hope it picks up relevant enemies, so making it better at actually seeking out and picking up enemies (and making the tornados not all clump up in the same place) would probably put it in a much better spot than a lot of people seem to think.

 

 

Zephyr is not really in a place where minor changes are worth suggesting.  She is almost inarguably the WORST frame in the game, with no real niche since her 'signature' abilities except for a passive defensive buff that works somewhat unreliably are essentially replicated by the basic movement techniques that are available to literally every frame in the game.

[Azzaruth]

On 1/18/2018 at 3:28 PM, Azamagon said:

Groundcast Divebomb was meant more as a "minimal effect Divebomb", more than anything else (also, read my response to INight00, about the placeholder-thing)
And... how is damage EVER irrelevant in Warframe? Oo
Scaling with melee mods and melee combo and height and ability strength... you don't see that as being a potentially ANNIHILITING ability (which requires some prep-work, yes, but still). Also, note that I said the range would also scale with height (up to a cap), besides, range can be increased by default too.
Plus, why compare it to some of most boring meta-cheese in the game?? You just seem REALLY pessimistic in regards to Divebomb, somehow.

Turbulence placeable would arguably be quite overpowered (which is why I wasn't sure about the idea), but it does have definite weaknesses; Melee is still completely unhindered. Close range fire could still be damaging you (I guess, at least it SHOULD, for balance's sake) and it does not impede enemies whatsoever (meaning, it has 0 CC in it).
The only reason I'd like this is, basicly, to give Frost a real run for his money in terms of defending static points. Only contestants are Volt, Limbo and quite far back, Gara, and Frost generally is just the easiest to use in most situations, compared to the others. Zephyr is definitely up there, but if defending a spot she then can't move around much, which was another reason for this idea; Allow defending a spot, while retaining mobility, but at the cost of your personally carried defense)
Still, it's something that can be scrapped entirely, yeah.

As for Tailwind; You mean combocasting, a la Landslide or Rhino Charge? That'd be ok I guess *shrugs*
And yes, damage is indeed entirely irrelevant for it (as the damage-emphasis I put on Dive Bomb instead), it's meant for various other utilities (I guess you could tell that was my intention for it too?).

So, if they'd REGARDLESS of their statements would be able add Cyclone somehow (in a way you'd like with the other abilities along in there), you'd not complain, is what you're saying? :P
I know about their current refusal to more thoroughly revamp stuff (which, honestly, sounds like laziness and/or pride more than anything else), which is why I had both approaches added (hoping to convince them to change their stubborn opinion, as futile of an attempt as that may be for me. Won't die from trying though, heh).

As for the radical passive, what part of it do you not like? How it is performed, or what it does, or even both?

My stance on frame's damage abilities are somewhat polar honestly. Which in a nutshell is go big or don't bother. Weapons in this game are far more capable to mowing down enemies than most warframe abilities. So casting them is just a waste of energy unless they would be more efficient than a strong AoE weapon. So instead, I value powers with mobility and utility infinitely more useful than most DPS powers. And Divebomb just would just still be a mediocre tailwind that goes in only one direction, and stunlocks you for a second upon landing, the damage wouldn't justify it. And at higher levels, or room based missions the skill becomes irrelevant altogether. It mostly boils down to why I would want to use divebomb over a tailwind into a scoliac spin attack, and there is very few abilities in the game that are more efficient than that. That is why I am not a big fan of Divebomb or just tacking damage on to it.

It's a lot more powerful than it sounds, as it is Limbo's cataclysm without all the downsides, and it moves with Zephyr. It's already one of the most versatile defense abilities in the game, giving it the ability to place it would give it far too much utility. Also I am mostly just salty with all the 'Sit in one place' frames coming out lately, like Nidus and Gara, we have enough point defense frames, I rather her being focused on mobility rather than damage or point defense.

And yes, those types of combocasting, overall I prefer those over toggables. And while I do see the utility, it still wouldn't be used more than a mobility ability like it is now. As such, not much would change.

If they replaced Tornado with Cyclone I wouldn't really complain, I am really just not a fan of Tornado. But what DE really does not want to rework frames like Limbo again because of how many players were upset that they can't kill one enemy at a time as efficiently, and now have to kill groups of enemies at a time.

And what I don't like about the tailwind passive is that it just shouldn't be a passive. It's too easy to activate when it is bound to jump, and too many buttons when bound to bullet jump. And I rather not start tailwinding when trying to reach the apex of my jump, or doing a double jump, or worse, doing a double jump when trying to do a tailwind. Overall it would make it feel clunky to use either way.

[RHuckebein]

Also to clarify the 'include jet stream default so turbulence is less boring' point I made:

 

Turbulence is the ONLY 'personal protection buff' ability that does nothing other than just prevent damage/death (except for defy, which makes it legitimately impossible for you to ever die if you are paying any amount of attention)

Ash - Smokescreen has a stun and prevents detection as well as targeting

Chroma- Elemental Ward (Ice) reflects damage, (lightning) stores and unleashes damage, and (Fire) does continuous AoE damage around him.  Vex armor significantly increases damage dealt by all of your weapons.

Gara - Splinter storm can be targeted on things other than yourself with full effects, deals damage, and multiplies damage taken by enemies in its area

Inaros - Scarab Swarm also functions as a projectile with incredible CC ability and massive lifesteal that heals your entire team

Ivara - Infiltrate gets extra loot, deals extra damage, and prevents detection as well as targeting

Loki - Invisibility prevents detection as well as targeting

Mesa - Shattershield reflects back damage and status effects and prevents some knockdowns

Mirage - Hall of Mirrors reflections increase your damage dealt, especially with AoE weapons.  Eclipse is also a conditional damage multiplier.

Nezha - Warding Halo stuns and damages bnearby enemies

Nova - Null Star does damage to enemies

Oberon - Renewal does a lot of things ever since his rework and boosts the whole team without them having to rub against him the whole time

Octavia - Metronome does a ton of different things and provides the same buff options to allies

Rhino - Iron Skin makes Rhino completely immune to status effects

Titania - Razorwing literally lets her fly

Trinity - Link deals damage to enemies, Provides status immunity while redirecting statuses to said enemies

Valkyr - Warcry is a large team attack speed buff as well as its armor buff, and slows enemies when cast.  Hysteria is actual invulnerability and gives her lifesteal and status immunity and powerful melee attacks

Wukong - Defy makes it actually impossible to die unless you aren't paying attention to what's going on.  Cloud walker also makes him uninteractable by enemies, lets him fly, stuns enemies and opens them to finisher damage

Zephyr - Turbulence mostly deflects bullets

 

[AcceptYourDeath]

Not a fan of this "melee mods should do something"-idea! It has been intigerated with quite alot of Warframes by now. I don`t need every second Warframe dictating by weapon builds. 

Something I really appreciate about Zephyr is how she basically works with every weapon and doesn`t care.

[Azamagon]

On 2018-01-19 at 5:43 AM, MrJxt said:

0.) Passive

Problems:

-Lower gravity is annoying when you don't need it.
-Doesn't affect her bullet jump distance and speed despite being the 'lighter' than other Warframes.
-Landing from high heights force a heavy landing despite being 'lighter' than other Warframes.

Suggestions:
-Disable lower gravity by sliding in mid-air.
-Increase aim glide duration.
-Improve bullet jump via further traversal and/or animation speed.
-Remove hard landing from high heights.

1.) Tailwind

Problems:
-Was designed around parkour 1.0 and did not age well when parkour 2.0 was released.
-Higher duration builds lock you into a longer animation compared to lower duration. This means that casting tailwind into an obstacle will cause you to get 'stuck' momentarily.
-Does not retain momentum from mid-air cast. She flies quickly in one direction then stops completely once the animation ends.
-Damage/crowd control is very lacking.
-Requires considerable amount of energy for its distance travelled. Bullet jumping with a +24% to bullet jump mod covers roughly the same distance as 200% duration tailwind. Also, Rhino Charge and Tidal Surge have faster horizontal traversal.

Suggestions:
-Improve travel distance and speed similar to Rhino Charge and Tidal Surge's improvements.
-Allow Zephyr to retain some momentum after casting tailwind.
-Keep animation/cast time consistent regardless of power duration.
-Flying past nearby enemies should also push them away(impact proc).
-Any Enemy that receive a head-on collision (in your crosshair) should be ragdolled/knocked down and take additional damage.
-Tailwind should ignore unit collision, which will improve traversing in small and crowded corridors.
-Add an energy counter combo similar to Atlas's landslide and Valkyr's Ripline, consecutive casts in quick succession will lower energy cost.

2.) Divebomb

Problems:
-A simple second ability that is greatly hindered by its low range.
-Has damage scaling based on height activation but is capped at 15m.

Suggestions:
-Increase the knockdown range from 4/5/6/7m to 8/9/10/12m.
-Increase the bonus damage scaling from activation height.
-Increase or remove the 15m bonus damage cap.
-Slightly increase diving speed.
-Add an optimal impact range that increases damage and knockdown duration in a small radius.
-If Tailwind receives an energy combo counter then allow divebomb to benefit and contribute to it as well.

3.) Turbulence

Arguably the only ability keeping Zephyr relevant.

Suggestions:
-Provides Zephyr with additional projectile speed 10/15/20/25%.
-Provides Zephyr with additonal movement speed 5/6/8/10%.

*Projectile and movement speed scale with power strength.

Jetstream augment:
-Quadruples the buff strengths from Turbulence. Allies within range will also receive its benefits. (basically the current Jetstream)
-Allies who leave the buff range will have the effects linger for 5s instead of 3s.

*This lowers the necessity of the augment to obtain additional projectile/movement speed for yourself and puts a bigger emphasis on choosing to buff your squad. "Should I use Jetstream to strengthen Turbulence's effects and buff my squad or use that mod slot for something else?"

4.) Tornado

Good idea but unreliable crowd control and often annoying when used.

Problems:
-Cannot be disabled without falling out of bounds, high duration builds suffer greatly because of this.
-Scatters enemies everywhere, which is annoying if you want/need to kill them.
-Low damage and hard to damage enemies in tornados.
-Hitting a tornado can only change the elemental type based on elemental priority but does not provide additional damage.
-Very slow movement speed.

Suggestions:
-Increase the number of tornados from 2/2/3/4 to 2/3/4/5.
-Similar to Hydroid's undertow, you and your allies can attack a tornado and distribute a percentage of the damage dealt evenly to all enemies trapped in a tornado.
-Increase the tornadoes' movement speed to aid with seeking and trapping enemies.
-Recasting Tornado while it is active or when the duration expires will cause a radial windwave causing knockdown and deals 125/150/200/250 impact damage to all enemies within 10m of a tornado. Damage stacks if enemies are hit by multiple nearby tornados.

Funnel Clouds augment:
-Creates 10 instead of 8 small tornados.
-Increase movement speed.
-Each tornado should slowly pull enemies within 5m towards it similar to Zenurik's Void Singularity.
-Inherits the same mechanics as tornado without picking up enemies.
-Increase status chance.

 

Passive stuff:
- Any low gravity issues could be solved with my radical passive (simply fly where you want, including downwards). If not going with the radical one, I'd honestly leave it as it is, after all, melee slam and Divebomb already can aid her downwards traversal.
- Increased aim glide definitely makes sense
- Titania already has this, better leave SOME things different
- Same here, but for Valkyr.

Tailwind:
- Most of these, if not all of them, are already covered in the OP.

Divebomb:
- Increased range was sort of already covered (by letting its radius scale with the height of the drop too, up to a cap of doubled radius (so, you get between 7 and 14 meters radius at max rank)
- Yeah, height damage scaling definitely needs to be better
- There's a damage cap? Oo If there is, yeah, it definitely needs to go. (Can anyone confirm this cap?)
- More diving speed? Maybe *shrugs*
- So, you mean that if you land very close to an enemy, that enemy takes far more damage and is knocked down for longer? That could work I guess.
- Oooh, that's clever! DB being able to take advantage of and contribute to the energyreducing combocasting of TW is brilliant! I'll definitely add that as a note (will be sure to credit you too!)

Turbulence
- I can dig all these changes. Much better than just plain adding the augment baseline.

Tornado
- More Tornadoes? Eh, I think that's what the augment should be for imo.
- Already suggested the Undertow-like effect in the OP ;)
- Speed increase also already suggested.
- That deactivation/expiration windwave sounds neat. Might add that too.

Funnel Cloud
- Most of these I could get behind (speed already suggested), but I think the enemy-pull-in (a la Zenurik's Singularity) is the most interesting part of your suggestions. That might be better alternative to what I suggested. Might add this too!

Thanks for your ideas, much appreciated! :)

On 2018-01-19 at 7:16 PM, RHuckebein said:

Tailwind

If you're going to make a change to tailwind's cost, and you want zephyr to have literally any niche at all, then in all seriousness it should cost 0.  It should be an actually free ability.  Bullet Jumping is free, and summoning an archwing on the plains is functionally free.  Sure you can tailwind repeatedly, but there are frames in this game that can just actually fly now (all of them, on the plains) so who cares?

The absolute worst-case scenario for a viable tailwind cost is giving it a combo mechanic where each cast costs less after you use it that resets when you touch the ground (and Riven unlocks clearly reveal that warframe already has 'resets when you touch the ground' code in it).  10 energy is far too much for tailwind if it's supposed to be one of her signature abilties, especially since you can't put high efficiency on zephyr without also slowing her down since tailwind travel speed is duration-based.

 

Divebomb

Divebomb has ALSO been bad since parkour 2.0, since there was actually one good build to use it, which was max range divebomb vortexe and a short-slide weapon to spin in place.  You'd pull an entire room into you and then shred them with spin attacks.  After parkour 2.0 killed variable spin attack distance in order to kill coptering, she lost the 'spin in place' part of the zephyr blender, and coincidentally at the same time divebomb vortex stopped pulling things 'to' you and just started ragdolling them all the way across the room.

Right now, Divebomb's literal only use is spamming shorthop/divebombs with Divebomb Vortex to ragdoll enemies for CC purposes.  Which is fine, but it isn't particularly fun or engaging and doesn't really convey 'flight' or 'wind' since you're basically just making earthquakes at that point.  If you aren't using high-range divebomb vortex it is an actually useless move, and even worse than that it's almost an unsalvagable one.  If the only thing being changed about divebomb vortex is the numbers, the only way to fix it is to make it do massively overpowered damage because the targeting and setup are so bad.  If it isn't doing infinite scaling damage in the vein of 'If you hit an enemy,  Divebomb could gain the text 'if you hit an enemy with divebomb, deal finisher damage equal to a percentage of its max HP to everything in the area of effect' and it would still only be an okay ability.  It's bad.

 

Turbulence

Turbulence is okay, I guess.  I can't really think of any changes that need to be made for it other than 'to work properly.'  I'd rather see jet stream built in as a core function of the ability and the augment do something else so it'd be less boring, but the ability is actually pretty good and lets you mod projectile flight speed with a warframe slot already so that's not really necessary.

Tornado

Tornado is a weak damage ability mixed with an unreliable CC ability.  It does multiple things and doesn't do any of them well.  It would be better if it were focused on either the damage OR CC effect and then the augment switched it to being better at the other one, but there's a million different ways to go with it.  Right now it's best use is just to use it for the CC and hope it picks up relevant enemies, so making it better at actually seeking out and picking up enemies (and making the tornados not all clump up in the same place) would probably put it in a much better spot than a lot of people seem to think.

 

 

Zephyr is not really in a place where minor changes are worth suggesting.  She is almost inarguably the WORST frame in the game, with no real niche since her 'signature' abilities except for a passive defensive buff that works somewhat unreliably are essentially replicated by the basic movement techniques that are available to literally every frame in the game.

Tailwind
You still think 10 energy would be too much, even with all those additions I suggested for it (in the conservative version)?
Considering your thoughts here, I guess you don't disagreed with the radical passives, then (which is, among other things, making Tailwind part of her passives)? :P

Divebomb
The chaotic ragdolling is what I tried to fix by suggesting the Vortex to linger a little while, so it makes sure enemies are all pulled in to the centre.

I think you are exaggerating the unsalvagability quite a bit (and if it basicly almost instakill everything in its radius it'd still just be "good"? Come on now). It could definitely be salvageable by ramping up its damage and radius (in what way, I'm not sure, but as a basic idea at least).
However, I don't think your line of thinking is outright bad here though. Giving its shockwave flat finisher damage + healthscaling finisher damage, both which scales with height (with the latter having a cap), could actually be a good way to make it a really powerful damagetool in her kit, without needing to rely on melee scaling. It requires a lot of effort to pull off correctly, so making it hit like a total truck is also in order.

Turbulence
If suggested as @MrJxt proposed it, I'd agreed.

Tornado
So... what do you think of my ideas for it then? I think my ideas might be to your liking.

Zephyr being the weakest frame in the game? Not really. In the current state of things, there is no such thing as being the "weakest" in Warframe, as all 'frames can at least provide with SOMETHING, often unique things to boot.
To me, I'd say she is a situational frame. Where she shines is on PoE, both due to her high mobility and the ability to protect both the Drone on the move, as well as the "console" cart.
However, I could maybe agreed with the idea that she might be one of the 'frames that could need the most polish.

As a sidenote; I feel people sometimes seem to undervalue tankiness / avoidance in this game. Never (or rarely) going into bleedout is an incredibly valueable asset, imo. And Zephyr can do that for both herself and her teammates, along with protecting NPCs to boot.
 

On 2018-01-20 at 3:55 AM, Zephyr-Prime said:

1) My stance on frame's damage abilities are somewhat polar honestly. Which in a nutshell is go big or don't bother. Weapons in this game are far more capable to mowing down enemies than most warframe abilities. So casting them is just a waste of energy unless they would be more efficient than a strong AoE weapon. So instead, I value powers with mobility and utility infinitely more useful than most DPS powers. And Divebomb just would just still be a mediocre tailwind that goes in only one direction, and stunlocks you for a second upon landing, the damage wouldn't justify it. And at higher levels, or room based missions the skill becomes irrelevant altogether. It mostly boils down to why I would want to use divebomb over a tailwind into a scoliac spin attack, and there is very few abilities in the game that are more efficient than that. That is why I am not a big fan of Divebomb or just tacking damage on to it.

2) It's a lot more powerful than it sounds, as it is Limbo's cataclysm without all the downsides, and it moves with Zephyr. It's already one of the most versatile defense abilities in the game, giving it the ability to place it would give it far too much utility. Also I am mostly just salty with all the 'Sit in one place' frames coming out lately, like Nidus and Gara, we have enough point defense frames, I rather her being focused on mobility rather than damage or point defense.

3) And yes, those types of combocasting, overall I prefer those over toggables. And while I do see the utility, it still wouldn't be used more than a mobility ability like it is now. As such, not much would change.

4) If they replaced Tornado with Cyclone I wouldn't really complain, I am really just not a fan of Tornado. But what DE really does not want to rework frames like Limbo again because of how many players were upset that they can't kill one enemy at a time as efficiently, and now have to kill groups of enemies at a time.

5) And what I don't like about the tailwind passive is that it just shouldn't be a passive. It's too easy to activate when it is bound to jump, and too many buttons when bound to bullet jump. And I rather not start tailwinding when trying to reach the apex of my jump, or doing a double jump, or worse, doing a double jump when trying to do a tailwind. Overall it would make it feel clunky to use either way.

1) Well... I kinda see what you mean. But why would you think "massively buffing Divebomb's damage" means it'd still be useless as a damagetool?

2) Yeah, I agreed. Especially considering that the Tornadoes (as per my suggestion) would basicly be moving defensive pillars anyway.
I'll leave the Turbulence suggestion in there, but I don't mind if it's completely neglected as a suggestion (as, it could indeed be really OP)

3) Maybe. But I think the utilities I suggested utilities I gave it could come in handy in narrow maps (especially in Corpus maps) *shrugs*

4) Well, I think Tornado is definitely salvageable, but I'm glad to see that you like the Cyclone ability at least ^_^

5) Ok, gotcha.
But I was hoping it'd be implemented as smoothly as possible; Only starting once you reach the apex of your jump, and stopping to "fly" as SOON as you let go off the jump-button.
Also, are you sure it would be too many buttons when being replaced with unlimited bullet jumps as a passive? I mean, you'd just have to hold crouch (or toggle crouch on), then spam the jump to do multiple bulletjumps one after another. I honestly think that'd not be too clunky *shrugs*.

On 2018-01-20 at 7:15 PM, RHuckebein said:

-snip-

You conveniently left out that Turbulence deflects attacks in an AoE, which means it can be used to protect allies and targets you need to protect (Defense pod, the sortie defense target, PoE drones etc). While it could arguably be considered boring because it "only" does that, it is still also one of the most powerful ones in the game.

That said, @MrJxt suggested your idea but in a more balanced manner, in such a way I could support it. Would you agreed with his idea too?

On 2018-01-21 at 12:12 PM, AcceptYourDeath said:

Not a fan of this "melee mods should do something"-idea! It has been intigerated with quite alot of Warframes by now. I don`t need every second Warframe dictating by weapon builds. 

Something I really appreciate about Zephyr is how she basically works with every weapon and doesn`t care.

As funny as this may sound (consider I'm the one that suggested it), I kinda don't like it either! :D
I wish it could simply be good enough on its own, but that'd basicly require it to deal Finisher damage (and still scale with height ofc), or cause a guaranteed slash-proc (similar effect, but more dragged out). It could still potentially scale with the melee combo counter (considering the ideas I added for "conservative Tailwind" / "radical Cyclone"), but that wouldn't be necessary either.