Dev Workshop: Warframes Revisited

[XxNimrodxX]

rip my high level build for ember, thx for the nerf.

[Ocerkin]

14 minutes ago, WolfTitan said:

What makes Warframe standout against most other MMO shooters? The answer: the fast-paced, thrilling nature of the game. The proposed change to Ember continues DE's recent tradition of slowing down the game.

It's been clear through recent nerfs to weapons and frames that DE is continuing its onslaught on the fast-paced nature of Warframe. Warframe is thrilling because players can rush through hallways and large rooms at the speed of light and devastate entire squads of enemies. DE has unfortunately acquiesced to those calling for the nerf - the ones who would rather force everyone else to shoot enemies one at a time with a pistol and spend 20 minutes on a low level extermination mission than allow speedy folks, the majority of which make up the player population, to run it their way.

With regard to the specific nerf, I ask, "What is the point of increasing WoF damage over time if the player has no energy and it has no range to damage enemies by the time the damage has been doubled?" I presume the answer to be: "There is actually no point because we, at DE, want to slow down the action. We want to kill the fast-paced nature of the game."

I would agree with some sort of nerf if Ember could devastate high level enemies as quickly as it could low level ones, but that is not the case. Want to make gameplay match the pace of a snail? Want to continue your onslaught on higher level players who prefer to clear out missions faster because they've done it 500 times before? You have succeeded.

ALL OF THIS.

NAILED IT

GG

[-ZechFate-]

This was mentioned in the livestream but I really agreed with this - so cudos to that person in stream.

Can you make Chromas 3 recastable so that we don't need to feel the need to self damage every time the buff runs out - that's totally a not fun playstyle for me at least and with the recast option we can just keep a good armor going from enemies damaging us naturally.

[Isca]

Commercially speaking, this is certainly odd timing for an Ember nerf announcement... I was strongly contemplating buying the Ember/Loki double pack as I haven't been around long enough to have got them or gear they come with before they were vaulted, but this is definitely making me think twice.

[No_Quarter]

2 minutes ago, mkoo33 said:

Obviously you don't play Ember.
Having the enemy knocked off their feet and not being able to one shoot kill you, thanks to WoF + Augment. That is not something to  call "useless".

 As i said before, Ember is not a killing machine over lvl 30,  but a very nice CC frame.

what you described on lvl 30+ is like a nerfed version of Equinox's Night Mode....

not utterly useless but you don't see them around very much on such levels because just tipping over enemies is not really useful compared to other warframes

[Ashendal]

It should be interesting to see how purchases of the Ember Prime unvaulting go now that her main use, clearing out low level content to speed up that annoyance and some CC at higher levels, is gone. The change to Valkyr to work that way made sense because she's Invulnerable to all damage AND heals on top of the slightly ridiculous damage she can pump out, more if you start slide attacking around, while Hysteria is active. Taking away range from Ember and forcing her to get as close as she's going to have to get to enemies now paired with the total hit cap of her WoF means that she dies. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 credits. Dead. Firequake does nothing at that point. The increased damage doesn't matter at higher levels with the way it would now work, the fact that armor would mitigate the "damage increase", AND the fact Ember is made out of wet tissue paper so if anything sneezes on her she dies just means this change removes her from being picked.

Why would I ever use her for the one purpose she had, low level farming and possibly CC if you can convince a group to take you along, when I'm now going to be spending far more energy to get up close and personal to enemies and overall spend more time toggling her 4? I'm better off just using another frame and spamming an Ignis or Amprex or a bullet hose weapon with punch through. I just find it funny that whenever devs trot out the "fun!" line it's usually anything but and is more often just a cover for a nerf.

[Myriadtail]

3 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

ZEPHYR

Some of Zephyr's abilities are cheaper to cast while airborne - details in progress.

Tail Wind - Combined into a single ability with Dive Bomb. Can be charge cast on the ground, launching Zephyr into the air where she then hovers. In the air, Tail Wind still flies in whatever direction you’re looking, and Dive Bomb activates if cast while looking straight down.

Air Burst - New ability replacing Dive Bomb. A projectile that causes an AoE burst on contact, ragdolling enemies. Can be fired into Tornadoes to make them bigger.

Tornado - Now spawn where player is aiming and can be steered. The closest tornado will move to your aimpoint, meaning you can move them around. Tornado damage type now determined by largest amount of elemental damage absorbed, instead of last type absorbed. Tornadoes do a better job of keeping enemies captured, and shooting Tornadoes will do damage to enemies trapped inside.
 

Zephyr, the warrior of the skies, has seen little change since being introduced in early 2014. Four years later, her ability kit is showing its age - Parkour 2.0 improved mobility across all Warframes, making her reduced gravity and Tail Wind less useful by comparison. Turbulence is consistently useful, but all other abilities leave something to be desired.

To give Zephyr new wind beneath her wings, her Tail Wind and Dive Bomb will now be the same ability, cast depending on which direction the player is looking. This makes room for her new ability Air Burst, which gives Zephyr new ways to rain death from the skies. We do not have a gif ready for this yet. Combined with Tornado tweaks intended to make the ability more consistent and useful, Zephyr’s more well-rounded kit should help reassert her air superiority.

As a Zephyr main, this rework both intrigues and irritates me.  It's frustrating to have a kit that you use to its fullest abilities be what feels like completely gutted of its flavor.  Where the hell do I begin on this mess.

Combining Tailwind and Dive Bomb was the number 1 thing I personally fought against.  There's no need for it as they served different purposes, with Tailwind being a faster and more direct version of a bullet jump (Do you want to go a short distance for free or a longer distance for 25 energy?) and Dive Bomb having the ability to be an impromptu close AoE.  My suggestion that I made in a few places is to keep these two separate, but make it so that Tailwind now fires off in the direction you're looking instead of straight up.  This lets it have ability within tight corridors (just like bullet jumping) without removing the guts of the ability.  Combining the Augment into Dive Bomb naturally made sense, and having the augment leave behind a tornado-like damage area (similar to Ember's 3), but only occuring if Zephyr dives for a long enough time to actually flip down.

As the current rework sounds, it makes it implied that if I'm looking downward at any angle below straight ahead, there's a good chance that I'll go soaring straight down (possibly to my death) instead of a lower platform that I'd like to get to faster.  And the fact that you say that Tail Wind is now a "Charge cast" makes the ability even slower than what it should be, as if you're discouraging people from actually using the skill and focusing on Parkour 2.0.

The new skill, Air Burst, sounds like it would fail to do what a short hop and a dive bomb would do.  It's a slower option in taking care of things like Ratels, Leeches, Flameblades, and Butchers; four things that are the bane of Zephyr's existence.  Plus lobbing a knockdown projectile at a group of enemies in a distance doesn't do much for the immediate player unless it's to push through to an objective, and by guesstimating previous abilities its range will probably be loosely three body lengths wide and not big enough to be generally viable in any stretch of the ability.

The Tornado change is questionable, and a big issue that I have is asking if the tornadoes will be autonomous at a certain distance, or will they always follow Zephyr's crosshair.  Because if the latter is true, then that really kills the ability to be a wave separator.  Granted you can now apply damage to all enemies inside of a tornado, it makes no sense to do that when its best use is to drop a Tornado and ignore the enemies in it as you focus on either the objective (Opening a life support capsule, grabbing a capture target, opening a rescue cell or reviving the hostage, etc.) or to revive a teammate that has gone down.  Using it for an offensive state mitigates its use in my opinion, as Zephyr should be a defensive frame instead of an offensive frame.  Offensive missions should be using frames like Ember.  Oh wait...

4 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

World On Fire - 5 seconds after casting, a percentage will begin counting up on the ability icon. As this percentage scales from 0% to 100% over 10 seconds, the ability’s energy cost and damage dealt both grow to double, while the ability radius shrinks to half.

Good job, you took the offensive frame's only good skill away from her.

[ValentinoUomo]

cant wait for the mag buff cause mag is bae

[ADDgamer45]

Make a selection screen where you can ban getting matched with certain frames.

[Gene_Freak]

I've had a think on Ember and what could be done to make the most difference with the fewest amount of changes. Her first and third abilities are presently with little to no use, so they're natural candidates for tinkering. Since they want her to tangle at closer ranges, my thoughts are--

-Add a blind effect to her Fireball, opening enemies in its radius to finishers

-Shrink the ring from Fire Blast, and have it follow the player while providing an amount of damage reduction (something comparable to her old Overheat)

This would give her much better synergy as all four of her abilities would be encouraging her to play aggressively close to enemy mobs, and would allow for a lot more variety in fun builds! 

[Ocerkin]

2 minutes ago, OneOfTheNephilim said:

Commercially speaking, this is certainly odd timing for an Ember nerf announcement... I was strongly contemplating buying the Ember/Loki double pack as I haven't been around long enough to have got them or gear they come with before they were vaulted, but this is definitely making me think twice.

no chance in hell im spending 40$ on ember prime or 60 for both of them after this, why spend money on a dead horse?

[Valthryn]

All the reworks are fine except Banshee's. Soundquake with the Resonating Quake augment isn't used by players for fun, it's used for focus and affinity farming. The reality of this game is that focus and affinity are gained at about 1/4 (probably about 1/8 for focus) of what would be considered tolerable speeds without using cheap farming exploits. Banshee's 4 served as one of those cheap farming exploits that are all but required if you're going to put 7 forma on your Telos Boltor or try your hand at reaching focus cap for the day. I believe that the rework is fine for bashee's regular 4, but her Resonating Quake augment should not be touched, or it should force players back into the channeling animation if slotted on Banshee to prevent her 4 being a mobile stagger shield. The damage and range provided by the Resonating Quake augment makes banshee one of the two (maybe 3) frames that allow focus and endgame weapon ranking to be viable in the first place, so unless there are plans to multiplicatively increase the rate at which focus and affinity are gained, "fun" is not by any means a high ranking priority when it comes to Soundquake and the Resonating Quake augment. 

 

Edit: Ember's WoF nerf is also not a good idea (imho) as Ember has no reasonable crowd control, no reasonable damage buffs, no reasonable defense buffs, and no reasonable debuffing abilities. The only thing she is currently good at is taking out low level mobs with WoF and dealing some damage to all mobs in the area in sortie-level missions. It doesn't make sense to nerf a frame that is already low tier on pretty much everything but nitain alerts.

Edited February 2, 2018 by Daggerpaw1

[ObviousLee]

4 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

ZEPHYR

Some of Zephyr's abilities are cheaper to cast while airborne - details in progress.

Tail Wind - Combined into a single ability with Dive Bomb. Can be charge cast on the ground, launching Zephyr into the air where she then hovers. In the air, Tail Wind still flies in whatever direction you’re looking, and Dive Bomb activates if cast while looking straight down.

Air Burst - New ability replacing Dive Bomb. A projectile that causes an AoE burst on contact, ragdolling enemies. Can be fired into Tornadoes to make them bigger.

Tornado - Now spawn where player is aiming and can be steered. The closest tornado will move to your aimpoint, meaning you can move them around. Tornado damage type now determined by largest amount of elemental damage absorbed, instead of last type absorbed. Tornadoes do a better job of keeping enemies captured, and shooting Tornadoes will do damage to enemies trapped inside.
 

Zephyr, the warrior of the skies, has seen little change since being introduced in early 2014. Four years later, her ability kit is showing its age - Parkour 2.0 improved mobility across all Warframes, making her reduced gravity and Tail Wind less useful by comparison. Turbulence is consistently useful, but all other abilities leave something to be desired.

To give Zephyr new wind beneath her wings, her Tail Wind and Dive Bomb will now be the same ability, cast depending on which direction the player is looking. This makes room for her new ability Air Burst, which gives Zephyr new ways to rain death from the skies. We do not have a gif ready for this yet. Combined with Tornado tweaks intended to make the ability more consistent and useful, Zephyr’s more well-rounded kit should help reassert her air superiority.

 

We believe these changes make our wide Warframe roster more diverse and fun to play. We will be listening to your responses, so please keep feedback respectful and constructive. While not final, these changes will likely go out in a state very close to what is listed above. Once players have had a chance to try the changes themselves, we will consider further actions.

Thanks Tenno!

TL;DR, if you don't want to read all this, we're doing an impromptu livestream at twitch.tv/warframe to walk you through it live! 
Stream over now, thanks to everybody who tuned in! The VOD can be found here, once it's done processing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDzUK17NkVk

 

 

EDIT: I've answered some FAQs in a spoiler tag below - will continue to update as more questions arise!

  Reveal hidden contents

 

ASH:

Q: Does casting Teleport to join in on Bladestorm cost energy?
A: Nope! It's completely free.

Q: Can Ash's clones still proc Arcane Trickery?
A: Yes they can!

ATLAS:

Q: More info on Atlas' Rubble, please!
A: Sure! When you collect rubble while at full health, you gain 75 armor for a period of time. Multiple pieces of rubble can stack, but each stack has its own duration.

BANSHEE:

Q: Will enemies far away be affected by less stun, or only less damage?
A: Stun is still consistent at any point on the Quake. First hit has changed to a ragdoll as well!

CHROMA:

Q: What is the new formula for damage and armor calculation?
A: Instead of [(Base * Mods) * Vex Armor], it is now [Base * (Vex + Mods)], like all other damage boosting abilities.

Q: Do Chroma's damage buffs stack with other Chromas?
A: Yes, right now they do!

Q: Do allies need to take damage in order to benefit from Vex Armor?
A: Nope! The benefit from Chroma's damage taken is automatically spread to all teammates in range.

EMBER:

Q: Is the charge time affected by power duration mods?
A: No it is not - you will reach max charge after 15 seconds regardless of mods.

MAG:

Q: Will Crush provide overshields?
A: Yes!

Q: Are you increasing Mag's energy pool?
A: Yes! 125 energy on the base Mag, 175 energy on her Prime.

ZEPHYR:

Q: Will shooting into Tornado act like shooting into Hydroid's Undertow currently does?
A: Yes! Currently the difference is Hydroid Undertow does 50% damage divided evenly among all targets inside, whereas Tornado will do 100% of the damage to every target.

Q: How will the Dive Bomb augment work, now that it is part of Tail Wind?
A: The augment will be changed - stay tuned!

 

 

So in essence, Zephyr is still going to be a sup-par Titania. Want CC, Titania. Want damage, Titania. Want actual flight (when zephyr is  covered in freaking flight surfaces?!?!!?) Titania. Want some super duper speed, Titania's Razorwing Blitz. I'm trying  REALLY HARD to not be irritated by this, but the only thing I'm seeing here is this is a case of "The frame DE loves to hate". You have two parallel's with one being a DIRECT UPGRADE to the other. Gut Zephyr, rework her from the ground up. Please. Zephyr is my absolute favorite frame, and I don't want her getting a once in a lifetime "rework" only for it to still put her at the bottom of the barrel where she is now. She needs to be on par with Titania, not below her as she is now. This is a literal situation where "anything you can do I can do better" and it bothers me immensely. Please guys, do her the justice she deserves. Please.

[TrinXT]

Finally, Zephyr! :D How will Air burst affect the Tornadoes spawned by the Funnel clouds augment? Will it make the 12 Tornadoes big enough to lift enemies off the ground? 

Looking forward to testing the changes.. though tbh, I already think Tornadoes should gather where you're aiming when you activate the ability while it's already active instead of having 1 Tornado go to the location you're aiming at for the entire duration. Just seems like it'll block your line of sight a lot and end up getting pretty annoying after a while.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

6 minutes ago, Radagosh said:

to counteract her range nerf one has to use overextended, this in return lowers the buff of flash accelerant, I highly doubt this results in higher damage than before, but have to get my hands on it before I can say for sure.

Also, this is anything but a rework. It is just a blatant nerf to her 4 her useless abilities weren't touched whatsoever.

 Then don't use overextended. 😧 They make the range go down intentionally to encourage using in bursts, they said so. 

6 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

the thing is this rework is a MASSIVE nerf for players who build ember around crowd control using firequake augment, big range and low power strength. 

While the rework will have very little impact on the star map, she'll still be a press 4 frame even with the rework, it really doesn't do much for high level content where she's used in a completely different way. 

I'll tell you a little secret, if you're using her for her 4th then you're playing her wrong to begin with. I've been building around her Accelerant for a few months thanks to input from the forums. Her current 4th is a joke.

[ObviousLee]

Just now, TrinXT said:

Finally, Zephyr! :D How will Air burst affect the Tornadoes spawned by the Funnel clouds augment? Will it make the 12 Tornadoes big enough to lift enemies off the ground? 

Looking forward to testing the changes.. though tbh, I already think Tornadoes should gather where you're aiming when you activate the ability while it's already active instead of having 1 Tornado go to the location you're aiming at for the entire duration. Just seems like it'll block your line of sight a lot and end up getting pretty annoying after a while.

The proposed changes aren't enough in my book. She's still overshadowed by Titania in practically every way.

[jiminatorx]

11 minutes ago, Kimimoto said:

The only way Ember can reliably survive in 100+ content is by using Firequake with some decent range, this change nerfing her range over time will DESTROY her. You need to add survivability somewhere else or she will not be played in high level missions.

eh, there are very few people playing ember in high level missions today. I rarely see her in sorties and I never take her into S3. S1 & S2 I use her firequake for knockdown but melee for the actual killing.

Maybe this should have been foreseen after the chicken hat.

Edited February 2, 2018 by jiminatorx

[ADDgamer45]

Can we get like a test? Like if your frame can't survive mot for 5 min with no weapons the nerf is too much?

[ThorienKELL]

This is horrific nerf. People are clueless about game mechanics. Range IS damage. "Half of range" is actually 1/4 of area. It means you attack 75% less of targets. All that ember had was range. Now she has nothing.

I guess max range firequake ember will still be kinda useful cause you won't need as much power str. Still - this is crapp. 

Edited February 2, 2018 by ThorienKELL

[(PSN)TwilightGrim]

can we get an additional change to chroma, like khora: reg select changes element of chroma, charge activates his 1.

as well as a question: does banshees change to quake only activate once and refresh per recast or does it place a new quake bomb (aka) octavia or vauban style?

[PsiWarp]

Since WoF has this overheat mechanic now, it would be cool if casting other abilities would release said heat and bump the range on WoF back up briefly.

[hodagacz]

2 minutes ago, jiminatorx said:

eh, there are very few people playing ember in high level missions today. I rarely see her in sorties and I never take her into S3. S1 & S2 I use her firequake for knockdown but melee for the actual killing.

I took her against the Mutalist Alad V the other day on an S3. It was really fun. But yes, I used melee and the Arca Plasmor to kill the things I knocked down.

Edited February 2, 2018 by hodagacz

[Ailyene]

Copying my opinion from another thread:

DE seems to overall feel this change makes Ember scale better from their response but as it was in the Devstream Ember couldn't last 5 minutes in Mot before dying, which was about mid-level sortie damage.  In my opinion as she is, she needs range and energy to use her other skills to survive in higher levels if that is what they are aiming on scaling her for.  (Not that many really use her for higher levels.)

While I am personally 'okay' overall with the upcoming changes; 1/2 radius is ~1/8th the volume which seems kind of harsh trade for the 2x damage that doesn't really push her WoF more than 10 levels past wherever we could currently use it, 2x energy drain on top discourages using her other skills to maintain WoF and is just kind of odd to nerf it twice.

I think if they gave WoF scaling damage mitigation on top of the planned changes and made Accelerant apply to elemental combos with Fire in it as well rather than base Fire element only, she would be in a better spot allowing players to use Flash Accelerant instead for scaling damage and WoF giving her some form of survival for higher levels.  This in my opinion does a better job of scaling her for high level stuff while still preventing her from contributing while afk.

Edited February 2, 2018 by Ailyene
Minor

[curather]

1 minute ago, ADDgamer45 said:

Can we get like a test? Like if your frame can't survive mot for 5 min with no weapons the nerf is too much?

They took ember into mot and died within 4 minutes.

[No_Quarter]

18 minutes ago, WolfTitan said:

What makes Warframe standout against most other MMO shooters? The answer: the fast-paced, thrilling nature of the game. The proposed change to Ember continues DE's recent tradition of slowing down the game.

It's been clear through recent nerfs to weapons and frames that DE is continuing its onslaught on the fast-paced nature of Warframe. Warframe is thrilling because players can rush through hallways and large rooms at the speed of light and devastate entire squads of enemies. DE has unfortunately acquiesced to those calling for the nerf - the ones who would rather force everyone else to shoot enemies one at a time with a pistol and spend 20 minutes on a low level extermination mission than allow speedy folks, the majority of which make up the player population, to run it their way.

With regard to the specific nerf, I ask, "What is the point of increasing WoF damage over time if the player has no energy and it has no range to damage enemies by the time the damage has been doubled?" I presume the answer to be: "There is actually no point because we, at DE, want to slow down the action. We want to kill the fast-paced nature of the game."

I would agree with some sort of nerf if Ember could devastate high level enemies as quickly as it could low level ones, but that is not the case. Want to make gameplay match the pace of a snail? Want to continue your onslaught on higher level players who prefer to clear out missions faster because they've done it 500 times before? You have succeeded.

you got it all wrong. Let's remind you of few things

1) Resonating Quake nerf - reason for it is AFK CLEARING MAPS that needs no skill or player involvement, you can press 4 and go grab your self a drik

Ember Nerf is the same thing, people running with ember and killing everything before you can see it is just bad for the gameplay, no one is having fun, not even guy playing Ember as he is not doing anything. AFK defense ezpz. Recent reworks and reworks mentioned on streams are to change this so players have to actually, you know, play the game in order to complete the mission. I know, it is insane but there you go, take it as you like.

You can still wipe out rooms, just you need to use more keys for it, press buttons, aim..

can't wait for Limbo rework outrage, oh boi I'm gonna get me a truckload of popcorn.