Dev Workshop: Warframes Revisited

[Sorenxoras]

owe. this might actually ruin my Ember build. i actually go lower power, high range, high duration. because Ember losses out on damage for high level missions, firequake is great for CC knockdown. Goodbye CC ember.

[SharkPot]

So, basically if I see a volt in-game, I should leave since he is going to fill in for Resonating Banshee. Noted.

[(PSN)TertulSee]

3 hours ago, (PS4)Spider_Enigma said:

she isnt useless, your just throwing salt into an ocean of salt by complaining u cant target the entire map and be lazy

i use ember and i barely use world on fire

Yes, and please survive an entire Sortie with only Ember without WoF. TBH, any frame should be useful at Sortie level at least. Her WoF makes it just a bit easier. Seriously though, make Ember a late game viable frame. Unlike other Ember players, I use Ember for high levels. I can tell you very well that making her get closer to the enemies will instantly get her killed and make her completely useless. Increasing costs is absolutely fine. Reducing range however, is another problem. Ember is squishy. She’s not Chroma or Inaros who can take a few hits from level 100 enemies at close range. Please stop treating her as such. The problem isn’t her damage now, it’s her survivability. Her Firequake was literally the only thing that was keeping her up.

Edited February 3, 2018 by (PS4)godlysparta

[MonkeyWaffles]

the sad thing about this NERF [yes, it is one] is that there is no rework for the rest of her skills [which desperately need reworking] nor to her survivability which leaves her pretty unuseable for anything.

[Prince-of-Space]

Contrary to what people seem to be saying on the upcoming Ember changes, I think Ember is fine. I agree with DE's theory of "she makes easy content too easy" and that may be unfun to a lot of players, in much the same way Banshee is unfun. Her changes also shift her from being a CC frame with Firequake, and more of an end-game DPS.  I don't think we're going to see any less of Ember in earlier missions, though. 

Mag on the other hand... Even with these new Mag changes, Mag doesn't seem like she will be much better. Making the shards deal more damage and giving allies shields and overshields on Crush... Its not really enough to make Mag suddenly viable again. People will still not play her in high end content, and she'll mostly be stuck in MR fodder still.

Which brings me to my main point here of Mag VS Ember. Mag, as we all know, has been one of the three starting Warframes for a long time. She wasn't one of the originals, if I'm reading old posts correctly, but was put there to replace Loki because DE wanted a female frame as a starter choice. However, I fully believe that Mag should not be one of the three Warframes players can choose at the beginning of the game, and should instead be replaced with Ember. 

Lets have a look at Excalibur and Volt, the other two beginning options, for a moment.

Excalibur is the poster boy of Warframe, and he's perfect for being a beginner Warframe. He's flashy, his moves are simplistic and straightforward, he's end game viable. He's also your very typical Warrior class-type character, so he perfectly suits the way games handle their beginning units. There's not much to say about Excalibur - he just excels at everything.

Volt is, while in my opinion not that great a Warframe, I understand enough about him and respect his position as a Warframe to know that he is exceptionally good at what he does. While not as offensively geared as Excalibur is, Volt has his speed boost and his shield, which are very "this does this very exact thing" when you cast them. There's no doubts what they do. They speed you up, they block damage. As a beginning Warframe, he's the perfect mix between offence and support, showing new players that overwhelming force isn't the only way to play the game. 

And then we have Mag. Mag is, I can assume, meant to be the caster type Warframe - like, you start RPG type games and you have the choice of playing as the Warrior, the Thief, or the Mage. If Excalibur is the brute force Warrior, and Volt is the dexterous Thief (bit of a stretch, but work with me here), then Mag is obviously the mage. 

But Mag's abilities are so... Invisible. Pull does exactly what it looks like, grabs enemies and yanks them. Crush grabs and squeezes enemies. Those are fine. But her Magnetize and Polarize do these great big moves and have really big effects on them... But it isn't immediately obvious what they do. 

Magnetize is used on an enemy to turn them into a giant magnet for other enemies as well as bullets, and will also boost the damage of anything within the zone. But to a new player, this really means... nothing? Excalibur and Volt's damaging abilities are so abundantly obvious what they do that a player just nods and goes "Yes, cool". But with a new Mag player, they look at this ability and go "... Wait, what did it do?" 

In addition to that, Polarize sends out a pulse that strips shields and armour from enemies to create Shards - that only deal damage when used with Magnetize. Stripping enemies' shields and armour really isn't a new player's priority, as most things will die in a few shots of a Mk-1 Paris or Mk-1 Braton, and on top of that, armour is a mostly invisible stat for new players - it wasn't until around MR10 that I learnt that an enemy with a yellow health bar has armour, while a red health bar means no armour. 

I can see where they were going with Mag. Frail caster frame who uses her abilities to wreck havoc on Grineer and Corpus, and needs to combo her abilities to maximise her damage. But her effects and true power is almost invisible to people who have no idea what they should be looking for, so much so that new players are likely to think that Mag is only useful against Corpus shields and useless against Grineer. 

In stark contrast to that, though, we have Ember. A powerful caster based Warframe who uses her abilities to deal damage, and can combo her abilities to maximise her damage output. Her abilities are straight forward, the effect is abundantly clear as soon as you use them, and the one ability that is not abundantly clear - Accelerant - is simple and easy to understand if you go and look at the ability and how its worded. It boosts fire damage? Yep, makes sense!

It makes sense from more than just that point of view as well. Ember, Volt, and Excalibur have similar abilities - their 1sts are linear blast of their respective elements (fire, electricity, sword); their 2nds are non-damaging combo or buff moves (boosts fire damage, boosts movement speed, blinds enemies to open for finishers); Ember and Excalibur's 3rds are similar (AoE fire/swords), while Volt's is unique (but his 4th is similar to their 3rds); And Ember's and Excalibur's 4ths are similar as well (energy draining, powerful abilities that make early content easy). 

Another thing is that Volt uses electricity, which one of the base elements of Warframe, and Ember uses heat, another base element. Mag, on the other hand, uses both Magnetic and Blast, two second tier elements. As new players have less access to multiple elemental mods, and don't yet understand how combining elements makes stronger elements, Ember would feel more welcoming to new players in terms of mods ("Oh, Ember makes heat damage better, I should use Heat on my weapons!").

In short, Mag is a decent Warframe - if you know what to do with her. Excalibur and Volt are effective in the hands of even novice players, so shouldn't it follow that the third choice should be as well? 

 

TL;DR - Mag isn't that great for new players, should be swapped out for Ember. 

[CryoSpecter]

I think the 50% range reduction is a little harsh, maybe turn it into a 25% range reduction? And as for her WoF energy cost doubling, I might get some "heat" ;D for this, but if you mod her for efficiency the cost to maintain it is honestly trivial, and doubling it alone won't make it impossible to maintain (the proposed change would make it 1.5 energy/second once fully charged). To put this in perspective, that is .25 energy/second more than Titania's Razorwing at max efficiency.

Maybe turning it into a combo of Valkyr's Hysteria/Mesa's Peacemaker, where the energy ramp's up to a level that is actually difficult to maintain while giving us bonus damage while we maintain it. I forget how they handled Valkyr's energy drain off the top of my head, but I think that would be an applicable solution.

[Phyrak]

Title.

Hey there, 

With the recent nerf, it would make sense to combine both powers as they last the same duration.

This would then make room for another more draconic ability to use.

Extra QoL - if scorn is full and not taking damage to health, fury will begin to fill. Works vice versa.

Optional extra:
With combination, turn the new 3 into an aura akin to Equinox's 3 whereby the buff is shared at the cost of a small amount of energy.
This would reduce the reliance on duration and give a reason to use range.

Thank you for reading,

-Phyrak

[yles9056]

5 minutes ago, GinKenshin said:

for vex armor, I wouldn't scratch the aura buff so easily. yes there's narrow minded, but the same thing can be said for rhino's roar, but you don't see a narrow minded roar build.....imo, this is to counter the FIX in the calculations. for example, in an eidolon hunt, you'll need a range+strength chorma, so you'll also buff your team to do the dmg against the weakspot.....so narrow minded in that case is bad. since you're trading dmg (done by your team) for duration (which only benefits you) 

You have the point. We'll need to see how Vex Armor changes actually work in game. But I just want to remind DE that it needs to have large enough base range.

I guess the reason why people don't Narrow Minded on Rhino is because they don't want to give up Rhino Stomp completely. Chroma doesn't have large range CC tho.

[(PSN)Nyxn607]

I would rather them make Ember's other abilities work better together.  Every single ember I meet anymore, turns on WoF and afk's.  Her other abilities work fine, with the exception of fireball .... they need to replace it with something else.  It is like Banshee, but at least with banshee I see people using her other abilities instead of just hit 4 and afk.  (there are still quite a few that do press 4 and afk, but less than I see of ember players.)

[Shade-Nightclaw]

I think If you are going to make Atlas drop healing/buffing items that only he could grab it might be good to either make them grabbable with a sentinels vaccume or just give him inate regeneration like nidus instead.

[CryoSpecter]

The only concern I have with a toggle is how powerful his buff is, and being able to maintain said buff indefinitely might not be what they want... But also if for some reason it magically became a toggle I won't complain lol

[(PSN)TertulSee]

2 minutes ago, Prince-of-Space said:

Contrary to what people seem to be saying on the upcoming Ember changes, I think Ember is fine. I agree with DE's theory of "she makes easy content too easy" and that may be unfun to a lot of players, in much the same way Banshee is unfun. Her changes also shift her from being a CC frame with Firequake, and more of an end-game DPS.  I don't think we're going to see any less of Ember in earlier missions, though. 

Mag on the other hand... Even with these new Mag changes, Mag doesn't seem like she will be much better. Making the shards deal more damage and giving allies shields and overshields on Crush... Its not really enough to make Mag suddenly viable again. People will still not play her in high end content, and she'll mostly be stuck in MR fodder still.

Which brings me to my main point here of Mag VS Ember. Mag, as we all know, has been one of the three starting Warframes for a long time. She wasn't one of the originals, if I'm reading old posts correctly, but was put there to replace Loki because DE wanted a female frame as a starter choice. However, I fully believe that Mag should not be one of the three Warframes players can choose at the beginning of the game, and should instead be replaced with Ember. 

Lets have a look at Excalibur and Volt, the other two beginning options, for a moment.

Excalibur is the poster boy of Warframe, and he's perfect for being a beginner Warframe. He's flashy, his moves are simplistic and straightforward, he's end game viable. He's also your very typical Warrior class-type character, so he perfectly suits the way games handle their beginning units. There's not much to say about Excalibur - he just excels at everything.

Volt is, while in my opinion not that great a Warframe, I understand enough about him and respect his position as a Warframe to know that he is exceptionally good at what he does. While not as offensively geared as Excalibur is, Volt has his speed boost and his shield, which are very "this does this very exact thing" when you cast them. There's no doubts what they do. They speed you up, they block damage. As a beginning Warframe, he's the perfect mix between offence and support, showing new players that overwhelming force isn't the only way to play the game. 

And then we have Mag. Mag is, I can assume, meant to be the caster type Warframe - like, you start RPG type games and you have the choice of playing as the Warrior, the Thief, or the Mage. If Excalibur is the brute force Warrior, and Volt is the dexterous Thief (bit of a stretch, but work with me here), then Mag is obviously the mage. 

But Mag's abilities are so... Invisible. Pull does exactly what it looks like, grabs enemies and yanks them. Crush grabs and squeezes enemies. Those are fine. But her Magnetize and Polarize do these great big moves and have really big effects on them... But it isn't immediately obvious what they do. 

Magnetize is used on an enemy to turn them into a giant magnet for other enemies as well as bullets, and will also boost the damage of anything within the zone. But to a new player, this really means... nothing? Excalibur and Volt's damaging abilities are so abundantly obvious what they do that a player just nods and goes "Yes, cool". But with a new Mag player, they look at this ability and go "... Wait, what did it do?" 

In addition to that, Polarize sends out a pulse that strips shields and armour from enemies to create Shards - that only deal damage when used with Magnetize. Stripping enemies' shields and armour really isn't a new player's priority, as most things will die in a few shots of a Mk-1 Paris or Mk-1 Braton, and on top of that, armour is a mostly invisible stat for new players - it wasn't until around MR10 that I learnt that an enemy with a yellow health bar has armour, while a red health bar means no armour. 

I can see where they were going with Mag. Frail caster frame who uses her abilities to wreck havoc on Grineer and Corpus, and needs to combo her abilities to maximise her damage. But her effects and true power is almost invisible to people who have no idea what they should be looking for, so much so that new players are likely to think that Mag is only useful against Corpus shields and useless against Grineer. 

In stark contrast to that, though, we have Ember. A powerful caster based Warframe who uses her abilities to deal damage, and can combo her abilities to maximise her damage output. Her abilities are straight forward, the effect is abundantly clear as soon as you use them, and the one ability that is not abundantly clear - Accelerant - is simple and easy to understand if you go and look at the ability and how its worded. It boosts fire damage? Yep, makes sense!

It makes sense from more than just that point of view as well. Ember, Volt, and Excalibur have similar abilities - their 1sts are linear blast of their respective elements (fire, electricity, sword); their 2nds are non-damaging combo or buff moves (boosts fire damage, boosts movement speed, blinds enemies to open for finishers); Ember and Excalibur's 3rds are similar (AoE fire/swords), while Volt's is unique (but his 4th is similar to their 3rds); And Ember's and Excalibur's 4ths are similar as well (energy draining, powerful abilities that make early content easy). 

Another thing is that Volt uses electricity, which one of the base elements of Warframe, and Ember uses heat, another base element. Mag, on the other hand, uses both Magnetic and Blast, two second tier elements. As new players have less access to multiple elemental mods, and don't yet understand how combining elements makes stronger elements, Ember would feel more welcoming to new players in terms of mods ("Oh, Ember makes heat damage better, I should use Heat on my weapons!").

In short, Mag is a decent Warframe - if you know what to do with her. Excalibur and Volt are effective in the hands of even novice players, so shouldn't it follow that the third choice should be as well? 

 

TL;DR - Mag isn't that great for new players, should be swapped out for Ember. 

What’s the point of DPS if she can barely live long enough to deal it? She had CC potential before but now, Ember can’t take anything. She has damage now but at the cost of cost and range. Range is the key word there. If she has to stand within 3m of an enemy just to do sorta high damage that doesn’t really scale, she wouldn’t survive very long. Plus, the rest of her kit isn’t very useful. Yeah, a quick knockdown is pretty good but the energy costs. The only reasonable buff to her damage is if they made it dealt %Max HP damage which I highly doubt. She is basically useless with the new WoF because the rest of her kit lacks any good CC or reasonable damage.

[Sasuda]

12 hours ago, [DE]Drew said:

She scales better now for high level play. You can watch for more details here:
https://twitch.tv/warframe

 

Er, giving a flat increase isn't scaling for a few reasons. That's really what the damage boost is, a flat double. Her damage scales over the course of a few seconds but then caps at the flat limit.

Full explanation of why not scaling better for high level play in the spoiler:

Spoiler

As far as scaling better for high level play, actually she very much sounds like she scales worse. As damage increases energy drain and range are penalized equally. But not actually because as someone pointed out a radius decrease of half cuts area by much more than half. So her ability to damage has greatly decreased overall. Very minimally better vs close range targets, but in those scenarios you'd rather use fireballs or weapons (which can scale way higher) anyway. Ember's kit is even more redundant like this you'd be doing more damage stacking fireballs or fireblasts. Ember's specialty is really more oriented to cleaning weak mobs with WoF. At low levels with powerful Embers all mobs are weak (I'll make a separate post addressing high and low level stuff).

At high level play Ember still isn't putting any significant damage out with WOF, so in order to make WOF useful players make use of Firequake. Firequake losing range is a huge nerf, losing energy efficiency is even worse. But again Ember has a bit of a redundant kit so players will favor Fire Blast and Accelerant and high efficiency, decent damage, and low duration builds at high levels (even more so). So far the changes really seem to be nerfing Ember at high levels and scaling worse.

The counter point is that it's not quite flat double because accelerant, but it still would be a flat double although significantly higher cap. However again this has been nerfed due to the energy doubling. Big loss in energy available for accelerant. And Range stacks negatively here too, even if you can kill close range faster. The only energy mitigation is energy orbs, since Ember has lost the ability to passively finish off enemies at a distance she loses out on energy orb drops as well and she's more likely to pick up orbs while being close to full and not absorbing the full 25 energy from them. The energy loss and drop in accelerant is really the biggest reason this will scale worse, Ember's largest damage source isn't WOF it's accelerant

Of course mobility will help it not be completely affected by range but I think there's a lot going against Ember here and things aren't synergizing great. Doing the first 5 minutes of Mot also isn't really high level at all. High level is going to be over 20 minutes at least, enough for all drop rotations. But even then that's pretty basic. 40 min mark is the more appropriate high level margin. (yes there is higher but 40 is in the realm of reasonable amount of play. Most people don't have hours to spend on 1 mission. 40 min a day is still quite a bit)

 

So what are my suggestions to address the problems here?

1. Players being unable to keep up with Ember. This boils down to lobby/matchmaking problems and the dated recruit chat:
   Spoiler

   Not really an Ember problem if we're honest. I can usually out pace Ember's with full tilt WOF even on low levels. Even with setups not optimized for clearing low level content. It's not easy, but definitely possible. Embers who still kill before me are very active and are good players. And that's the problem, when good players are matched with players who haven't learned to be faster than WOF. WOF is more of a scapegoat because players don't want to admit that someone is playing effectively (movement is key to making an Ember actually useful). So I think this boils down to lobby/matchmaking problems and the dated recruit chat. (I'll have to find some relevant discussions to post later)

    

2. Ember lazing around. So Embers can get away with being inactive it's true, however I don't think this is the most effective solution to the problem. If you want to make a WOF Ember active and not lazy, make WOF scale off of being active, rather than time elapsed. Instead of damage increasing, range dwindling, and energy being chewed away over time (a passive effect), Increase damage and range with movement (active rewarding). Increasing energy cost really isn't a good method of managing the ability, it's been discussed across a number of threads. The result is an Ember that moves well remains the speed clear we should have to complete the redundant missions
   Spoiler

   (Relating to Rebecca's comments in stream about burnout: this is why players burnout moreso than abilities being boring. It's the feeling of overwhelming grinding being necessary and a lack of feeling progress towards player goals despite spending time and effort to advance. Even though players should be much stronger late game the same low level missions eat just as much time. It's the feelings of a lack of progression and achievement)

   and an Ember that performs better at high levels, and an Ember that trains players to move well whether to keep up or in preparation for staying alive at high levels. (Passive tutorial)
3. Ember inversely loses damage and range while not moving much. Hitting 4 and walking away will basically stop the ability. The thing with Ember is that she actually already is a lot of fun even with WOF because a good Ember moves a lot, and uses all her abilities and weapons in order to make her most effective. The only change should be that high level of movement is required, rather than being recommended.
4. This doesn't interfere with Firequake

Statwise maxing the movement with high speed varying maneuvers to the highest level will give the normal ability range, but give bonus damage across Embers full kit. Make it spice up Fire Blast and Fireball too.

Edited February 3, 2018 by Sasuda
number 4

[Averath]

6 minutes ago, yles9056 said:

You have the point. We'll need to see how Vex Armor changes actually work in game. But I just want to remind DE that it needs to have large enough base range.

I guess the reason why people don't Narrow Minded on Rhino is because they don't want to give up Rhino Stomp completely. Chroma doesn't have large range CC tho.

People are fine with using Narrow Minded on a Rhino that is focused entirely on Roar and relies on other frames for Rhino Stomp.

 

But we're forgetting the big thing here. They're changing Chroma for 'consistency'. Rhino Roar doesn't need an augment to let allies retain the buff if they move out of range. They can't talk about consistency and go halfway.

[Halisi]

I believe that Ember should have Fireball changed into a charge/mechanic ability.

Flame Assault, (or some other fancy name)

- Press the key to release a cone aoe blast of fire over 5m that does heavy damage and can be chained multiple times. You know, like a fiery shotgun blast from her fists.

- Hold the key to charge a mass of explosive gas in your hands over 1sec and release to lob it. Throwing a fireball that explodes on contact, knocking enemies down within a 7m radius of the explosion, and leaves behind a 5m patch of flames to continue damaging enemies for a short time.

Ember's kit has always lent itself more to a close range magical brawler playstyle. So fireball should actually work as a close range ability that can be spammed to lay down the hurt on small groups of enemies. While also giving it a charge mechanic to grant fireball some much needed utility. A long range aoe knockdown to make approaching groups of enemies easier, and creating another source of potent fire damage to help melt your enemies.

[(PSN)TertulSee]

Make his Vex Armor and his Elemental Ward recastable. I can’t believe this wasn’t even mentioned yet. Make Vex Armor weaker but at least make it last reasonably longer or make it a toggle. It takes a lot of resources to get his full buff. Just to loose it seconds later is kinda heartbreaking.

[Prince-of-Space]

1 minute ago, (PS4)godlysparta said:

What’s the point of DPS if she can barely live long enough to deal it? She had CC potential before but now, Ember can’t take anything. She has damage now but at the cost of cost and range. Range is the key word there. If she has to stand within 3m of an enemy just to do sorta high damage that doesn’t really scale, she wouldn’t survive very long. Plus, the rest of her kit isn’t very useful. Yeah, a quick knockdown is pretty good but the energy costs. The only reasonable buff to her damage is if they made it dealt %Max HP damage which I highly doubt. She is basically useless with the new WoF because the rest of her kit lacks any good CC or reasonable damage.

You're looking at this from the point of view of a high level player. 

Surviving isn't an issue in the early game, to a newbie player. Things either die so quickly, or deal so little damage, that surviving isn't the first and foremost thing on their minds. If they're having trouble surviving, they'll use that Vitality, that Steel Fiber, that Redirection.

As if Mag isn't as squishy as Ember is. Yes, Mag has more CC, I will admit. But at level 2 enemies in the game? The soft CC being on fire gives will be enough for a new Ember player to survive. 

You say the rest of her kit isn't very useful, but look at Slash Dash, Radial Javelin, Shock. Slash Dash isn't a useful DPS tool, Radial Javelin's scaling sucks in the early game, Shock is only useful with high range. 

You're not coming to this thread with the right mindset. I'm not here to debate whether or not Ember's changes are good or bad - does it matter? They're happening anyway. I'm here to discuss with people that Mag isn't the best choice for new players, while Ember is a much better choice. 

[Sahansral]

Ash:

* looks superb

* Rising Storm may have become obsolote, perhaps?

 

Atlas:

* good proposals

* a temporary buff to armor won't add much to his needed survivalbility, I fear

* Bullwark needs more Utility and size.

* Rumblers need to have more effect in higher levels and should not rush blindly in nullifier fields. also: titanic rumbler needs help

 

Banshee:

* top, pure win

 

Chroma:

* ok with Vex armor recalculation. damage was too high

* if you want me to invest into range, better make Elemental war and vex armor recastable

* Spectral scream needs massive help; damage plus some status won't help it; Afterburn is lackluster

* Effigy has the same problem as Spectral scream; a bit damage and unreliable cc aren't worth it. You call a damn dragon turret, make it worth it! It should be  nogo area for enemies and/or a dps boost for Chroma

 

Ember:

* change is needed here, but the new version looks very weak. Fire damage doesn't scale well. "anything under level 30”. just becomes " anything under level 40”. I fear, WoF really falls behinds other ultimates.

* If you take ayway WoF, you have to consoder what is left of her skillset. Fireball? Fire Blast? Oh my...

 

Gara:

* Mass Vitrify change makes sense. got to see and test it

* Spectrorage needs a bit scaling

 

Mag:

* the meta shifted towards life/armor. I don't see high shields in higher levels and that hurts Mag both directly and indirectly

* those nice synergies only happen against enemies with armor or shields (only a small point, I admit)

 

Volt:

* looks good; eager for testing

 

Zephyr:

* Tail winds looks cool, especially the hover part

* better Divebomb animation (it really lookslike placeholder)

* the steering of Tornado can make or break the ability.  it must not distract from aiming/firing with weapons

* Aviator has to work while hovering; don't forget :-)

 

Edited February 3, 2018 by Sahansral

[jiminatorx]

If ember must be change then the solution to me is to leave range and cost alone. Instead scale damage on an exponential curve, say 1.5x from the center down to .5x at the limit. This should greatly reduce damage against masses of enemies. Leave firequake alone to where it is providing knockdown the exact same way it is today. This then is a more palatable change than the useless double damage at half range for twice the cost.

It does nothing to solve issues with high level content but it does not totally ruin participation in high level content like the proposed changes.

Edited February 3, 2018 by jiminatorx

[Aleksi134]

Agreed. But i wouldnt say it needs a nerf, its already nerfed now.

[xXx_mtv_xXx]

Sounds like another batch of hard nerfs and a few QoL buffs that are long overdue.

[(PSN)TertulSee]

7 minutes ago, Prince-of-Space said:

You're looking at this from the point of view of a high level player. 

Surviving isn't an issue in the early game, to a newbie player. Things either die so quickly, or deal so little damage, that surviving isn't the first and foremost thing on their minds. If they're having trouble surviving, they'll use that Vitality, that Steel Fiber, that Redirection.

As if Mag isn't as squishy as Ember is. Yes, Mag has more CC, I will admit. But at level 2 enemies in the game? The soft CC being on fire gives will be enough for a new Ember player to survive. 

You say the rest of her kit isn't very useful, but look at Slash Dash, Radial Javelin, Shock. Slash Dash isn't a useful DPS tool, Radial Javelin's scaling sucks in the early game, Shock is only useful with high range. 

You're not coming to this thread with the right mindset. I'm not here to debate whether or not Ember's changes are good or bad - does it matter? They're happening anyway. I'm here to discuss with people that Mag isn't the best choice for new players, while Ember is a much better choice. 

Problem is that the abilities that you mentioned come with actually useful abilities along with them. Excalibur has Exalted Blade. Volt has his Shield. Ember? She has nothing that can make her late game anymore. She needs a complete buff to her other abilities or else Ember might fall very low on the player base. Why can’t she be good for late game content? The developers expect us to do it so why make a single frame incapable? I spent a lot of time making her good so shouldn’t I be compensated for my time and Forma spent?

Edited February 3, 2018 by (PS4)godlysparta

[AXCrusnik]

4 hours ago, Datam4ss said:

Do you want Mag to become max range Limbo 2.0? I thought of it, except unlike min range Limbo, min range Mag is silly.

Magnetize is already annoying enough when it blocks your team's bullets. Giving her another bullet block is just ... Not nice?

Considering how DE handled Limbo, Nyx and Magnetize, I don't think they would make the power only block enemy bullets if it stopped bullets dead. It would become another stasis.

So make it only affect enemy bullets. And maybe make blocked bullets turn into shards as well.

[xXHobbitXx]

mag is a great frame for new players, i feel you dont understand her very well saying she isnt

[UncaIroh]

Added thought:

Zephyr

Please put a landing circle for dive bomb so we can decide if enemies are in the drop zone.

Also: can we do some scaling on the dive bomb so that the farther we drop, we deal a bit more damage (this is a 1 after all)