Dev Workshop: Warframes Revisited

[Rest_In_Pieces]

58 minutes ago, PatternistSlave said:

You could use her augment as a CC tool to make her alright for higher leveled content.  The change as it stands would make her useless for everything.

Very true, but other warframes can achieve more than that, like nova for instance.

[2035]

29 minutes ago, (Xbox One)DrivableKarma3 said:

Unlike many frames that gain damage he has to pay for it

Ah yes, I remember how I could just run at a gorgon, lower my hp and bless to tank hysteria. So much work, the work total warrants the conditionally broken buff.

 

 

34 minutes ago, (Xbox One)DrivableKarma3 said:

truly earn your buffs

 

34 minutes ago, (Xbox One)DrivableKarma3 said:

eidolon hunter

Eidolons, right, totally need chroma or else people might actually need to aim with decent builds for 10-20 seconds.

[Shadedraxe]

2 hours ago, Uzkost said:

It doesn't do 0 damage, but no headshot multiplier

I’m aware of that. The 0 damage on headshots was a nasty bug. I knew they fixed it, but the post I quoted made it sound like they gave headshots multipliers again for the plasmor. Was just a misinterpretation on my part then.

[PatternistSlave]

1 minute ago, Rest_In_Pieces said:

Very true, but other warframes can achieve more than that, like nova for instance.

Yeah it wasn't near as good as the CC of other frames, but had the benefit of being automated so you could focus purely on gunplay and such.  They're removing that tho.  So yeah.  There is no point then.

[AFluffyPunda]

Whats more, in order to bring my Ember prime to lv60 mobs, i formaed her 7 times to build her to what i want her to be and now with this nerf, ember prime would just be for fashion frame and thats it

[VisionofFire]

Feedback on the Mag change: Buffs while appreciated look a bit misguided.

Polarize change:

Will be mostly non-relevant, it's essentially solving a problem that doesn't exist. The shards interaction with magnetize has thus far always been irrelevant because pumping damage into the bubble has never been an issue, because it scales off of weapon damage. Anything that enters a bubble today is straight up dead, unless it's protected by high level scaled armor, ancients aura, etc. It may make a lot more sense to have the  effect be something other than damage, perhaps the synergy could be localised % armor strip for shards in the bubble, so that 100% armor strip is conditional and not applied to all enemies. If the argument is that this change is meant for lower level content or for newer players, then that argument falls down because polarize already does murderous amounts of damage to trash mobs below lvl 50 due to the echo interaction.

Crush change

Not a fan of this. While I understand this is an attempt to address the issue that Mag is left vulnerable during Crush, it overlaps very strongly with the role of both Polarize and the Shield Transference augment. It also fails to address the actual problem with Crush, which is the immobility makes it very risky to cast in higher level content, unless done under the umbrella of a Magnetize bubble. Overshields willl not prevent a random slash proc that will end Mag. Crush is not a guaranteed stun unfortunately, it's not uncommon for enemies to occasionally ignore the initial stun on cast and fight freely until the final tick with the ending knockdown, and if you were counting on the Crush to actually CC, that's a downed Mag. Crush being magnetic damage also takes a huge damage penalty against Alloy armor, so if shards scaling is a thing on Crush, it still doesn't solve the problem of the skills failing to perform against scaled armor.

Thoughts on skills that buff/rework may wish to address:

• Magnetize is a very interesting skill, but it has several major problems
  • The skill is not friendly to new players, as the performance of Magnetize varies wildly depending on what weapon is equipped, with some fairly egregious issues when using hitscan weapons (bubble DoT math and not being able to target other enemies standing in or in front of a bubble.) Not every player is willing to sit down and read a manual before getting frustrated and giving up. This is compounded by the fact that Mag is a starter frame. The slow cast time combined with only being able to cast on enemies often results in awkwardly placed bubbles. While there are ways around this, it's just not a great skill to pick up and use.
  • Magnetize suffers the same problem as Limbo, being one of the few skills that can actively negatively impact teammates gameplay. This is partially a meta problem, Magnetize specializes in dealing far more damage than is currently needed in 95% of gameplay right now, but is relatively slow to cast and lingers after cast. Teammates get upset because their clear speed is already fine without magnetize, and clear speed drops once the first enemy is dead due to the bubble lingering. Going back to the above, since most weapons don't function properly with magnetize, teammates are generally unable to take advantage of pumping damage into bubbles.
  • If I was asked to make a concrete suggestion, a toggle for the behaviour of magnetize might be in order. Change the dev build version of magnetize to have a faster cast and immediately explode upon enemy death. Might have to mess with damage absorption values/explosion damage a bit to compensate. Having this be the default behaviour for magnetize would be far more team friendly, as bubbles would no longer block team fire once the initial target is dead. New players would also have a "nuke" that's easier to understand and much quicker to trigger. Allowing it to scale off weapon damage/enemy health keeps the damage relevant across the starchart without requiring stacking power strength mods, which keeps her beginner friendly. The key points to address though are the speed and ability to immediately generate value off magnetize, preferably with an AOE effect of sorts, while not impeding fellow players.
  • Can't be an augment because then new players can't take advantage of the new behaviour, and moving it to the default with the old behaviour as an augment is bad, since Mag still needs normal defensive bubbles to survive in a lot of high level content.
• Polarize is also quite inconsistent
  • Currently does nothing to Infested.
  • The explosion damage is highly inconsistent due to enemies running out of shields/armor, as well as relying on proximity of enemies. Due to the nature of polarize, you can run fairly low power strength like 130% and kill or cripple trash mobs up to around lvl 50.Polarize/Crush Mag can easily serve as DPS on Hydron with no mods over rank 5. On the flipside, a high power strength polarize may fail to clear low level trash, because enemies that have no armor left will not splash each other. If you changed Polarize to deal it's full damage + splash on enemies with only health alone, I suspect the echo effect would make the skill stupid broken for clearing trash below lvl 50. Corpus tends to be a larger offender here, as damaging their shields with either a Pull or Crush before the Polarize reaches results in less shields => less splash from polarize => greater likelihood of stuff surviving.
  • Hilariously enough, the above also results in a good leechers that bring Corrosive Projection murdering your damage output. Again contributing to the inconsistency of the skill.
  • To summarize the above, Polarize is not only viable, but great at bullying almost all non-endless starchart content, if the all the conditions line up. That's a pretty big if.
  • Tying into the above: Polarize looks like it should be the panic button of choice for new players. Unfortunately:
    • Mag's Polarize relies on timing and circumstance to have full effect.
    • Compared to Excal's and Volt's panic button (Radial blind/ Shield), Mag's is overcosted early game at 75. Energy is hard to come by early, and it's not uncommon for new Mag players to burn their energy on Polarize or Crush, then go down because they have no energy left to defend themselves from the next mob
    • Feedback from the skill is not clear, whether it kills or not, how much extra damage you're getting from debuffed armor, etc. are all not easily visible from the UI. This again goes back to the whole "reading a manual" problem
  • As pretty much everyone has noted, Polarize armor strip currently has no way to scale, which means the skill falls into disuse outside of the shield regen at sufficiently high levels. Some form of scaling needs to be added, whether it be via shards synergy or something entirely new.
  • Shield Transference would actually be worth running if it worked on Grineer/Infested, and affected teammates. The effect itself is arguably quite powerful, as not only does it massively boost the shields restored per cast granting a level of scaling to Polarize, shields continue to be regenerated as the wave continues to spread. The closest comparison to an existing skill would be Vampire leech. Shields aren't great protection, but being able to cheaply apply and regenerate overshields while continuing to perform other activities is an effect worth spending an augment slot for.
• Crush
  • As above, the biggest problem with Crush is it takes forever to cast, and it locks Mag in place with no consistent effective tricks you can play to mitigate incoming damage.
  • Crush also needs a purpose beyond raw damage + unreliable CC in order be useful in higher levels.
  • Fracturing Crush is a good augment tied to an unwieldy skill. If Crush wasn't terribly slow and/or the armor debuff was moved to the start of the skill rather then end, double crush to stack the armor reduction => polarize to remove the remaining armor locks in the 100% armor removal with relatively low  power strength.
  • Given that Polarize + Crush is currently decent for clearing trash, a synergy between these two skills (both hit AOE) might be a more natural fit.

 

Closing thoughts:

Mag is currently a very polarized frame. Below lvl 50 or so, her 3 and 4 combo well to murder trash, but is inconsistent. In high level, most builds tend to transition to building around her 1 + 2. Her 2 actively blocking teammates needs to be addressed. Would also be useful to know what benchmarks the balance team is using to assess these changes. Something along the lines of:

• How doe the frame perform with zero mods, as a starter. Are the abilities effect and stats relevant while the frame is leveling up? Or do they require a near max level to function
• How does the frame perform with the a basic set of mods? (No corrupted mods, basic setup may be something like Vitality, Redirection, Flow, Stretch, Streamline, Energy Siphon.) What happens if the player is running a non optimized setup? Does the energy economy for the frame work at this level? (synergies generally are not usable at this stage)
• How does the frame perform midgame with corrupted mods? (net build cost should be around 50-100 plat, no mods above rank 5) Frame should be fully starchart viable by this point.
• How does the frame scale into endgame? How does the frame intend to mitigate damage (reliable CC, damage reduction, projectile blocking, etc.)

 

Misc bits:

Comments on Existing synergies:

To a large extent, the current official mag synergies simply didn't make the transition from drawing board to implementation successfully. A large part of this is that most of the synergies focus on just a raw damage buff in some way, which means they have very limited application and fall off too quickly to matter.

• Pull extra synergy: Non relevant because pull's damage is mostly relevant only early on, and its single target.
• Pull energy refund: Great idea, but was poorly implemented. Pull generally has trouble outright killing things, and given the % chance at an extra energy orb does not appear to guarantee a refund even with very high power strength, it fails to serve its purpose. A beginner Mag player who's pressing a 1 lot early on though will have a much easier time in warframe, as her 1 even with the basic Stretch mod has excellent range, and will help to compensate for undermodded weapons, as enemies will be softened in an AOE. Although it may be a bit complicated to understand for a new player, adding a energy regen mechanic over time to pull, similar to the arcanes for zaws, with a low cap that depends on # of enemies hit. Capped energy regen means pull can't be spammed, and players will incentivized to hit clumps of enemies with it, every encounter.
• Magnetize / Polarize shards: Already covered above, weapons scaling means the shards damage is either non relevant or would have to be buffed to extreme levels to compensate, which would be another can of worms
• Magnetize / Crush: Double crush damage, but again the problem is simply doubling the damage will not make Crush scale.

 

 

Edited February 4, 2018 by VisionofFire

[Spectre-8]

I don't understand how people even play Ember , it's so boring .

[(XBOX)DrivableKarma3]

The removal of self damage would deal with the eidolons as there are many frames that can buff your damage and or deal lots of damage to the eidolons in the time it takes to gain any buff without self damage. 

 

Also by work i didn't mean it was hard simply that in comparison to a frame like rhino where you simply cast your ability and it instantly gives it to you there is things that need to be done. While these can be done easily it reduces the time it takes for him to get his buff as well as puts him in more danger.  

[(XBOX)NeutralSilence]

1 hour ago, Prince-of-Space said:

I'm not here to discuss the Mag changes and whether or not its good for her. I'm here to discuss that Ember is a better starting Warframe choice than Mag is. 

Well you talked about the Mag changes in your OP, so I think we're far past wether or not you are discussing them even it's not your main point.

[MirageKnight]

1 hour ago, BornWithTeeth said:

If they want to do this, then Ember needs a compensatory buff which isn't just "WoF also does more damage now", because that's meaningless. She needs more reliable CC or defensive abilities, because that's what they're taking away.

That I can agree with. As I said elsewhere, they need to do more than just make her team-friendly. She needs to be relevant late game.

My beef with Ember has always been that most of her kit is very lackluster and limited and, as you say, she's quite weak and vulnerable without CC and other means of protecting herself.

2 hours ago, BornWithTeeth said:

which has the effect of giving a 50% accuracy penalty to enemies firing at Ember from outside of the radius of WoF.

Basically a curtain of heat distortion that makes it difficult for enemies to target Ember. I like that. Honestly though I think that should be part of WoF period.

[OvisCaedo]

1 hour ago, harbingerofdawn said:

People who play him call it a nerf because it fixes the math instead of breaking it. in reality it's just fixing the numbers not a nerf

It's not one or the other. If "fixing the numbers" reduces damage to under a tenth of what it was before, and what it was like for over a year, it's still a nerf. A needed one, maybe, but don't try to act like this ISN'T a nerf. Barring the actual numbers on the ability changing, it's a pretty significant nerf even if you're ignoring the bug where the damage bonus was being squared for combined elements (which is the part that WAS completely out of line and needed fixing). But, still, it was out of line before, so if they have to change the math to fix it, oh well. Needed to be done.

As far as armor goes, they haven't technically said they're going to be nerfing it in the same way, but I share the worry that they might until they say otherwise. Its current potency is largely due to it ALSO being a final multiplier instead of adding to the same value things like Steel Fiber do, so if they're changing one half of it away from being a final multiplier, I'm not convinced the other is safe from the same treatment.

Edited February 4, 2018 by OvisCaedo

[-QUILL_PETER-]

This is very unlikely to be taken into serious consideration, but I'm going to ask because I'll always kick myself if I don't:
(Zephyr Suggestion, not that I don't love what you've already proposed)

Spoiler

Would it be possible to give Zephyr the ability to ride the top of a tornado, maybe through a context action or simply casting tailwind into it?
I know it sounds ridiculous, but please think about. Tell me that wouldn't be the coolest #@$# to pump a tornado full of Airburst, then take a wild ride and steer it into a hoard of mobs.
Please, please, pleeeeaaaase.

 

Edited February 4, 2018 by -QUILL_PETER-

[Choralone42]

18 hours ago, Dawson1917 said:

The game requires thousands of hours to unlock a lot of content that's only worth a few hours each. No-one is keen on spending an entire year wearing the same rank-30 lens-installed frames and weapons just so they can mostly fill ONE focus tree. Don't complain about people trying to make things more fun and less tedious. There is no AFK, either; Banshee at its best (reactor + forma's) lasts about one minute, and non-reactor/forma Banshee struggles to go past 20 seconds with Resonating Quake (the required mod for using Banshee's 4, as it's utterly useless otherwise).

Just stop. Let people enjoy things. Suggest more interactive and FUN mechanics, instead of telling us to quiet down when DE says they're going to make the grind even worse for some of us.

This is my thought exactly! I've used Ember's WoF + Firequake + Energy Conversion for CC at higher levels. Now DE is going to nerf that into the ground by not also halving the range of WoF but also increasing the amount of energy it uses just like the did with Valkyr's Hysteria. 

 

I think Tactical Potato said it best in this part of his recent video  It should start at about the 11:10 mark. 

All this nerf to Ember to me says is that DE feels I should quit the game. I personally do not have time to grind and grind and grind and grind like DE wants both me and you to. So yes I want to get in, get what I need to do done and get out. I have almost 1600 hours in this game over the course of over 2 1/2 years. I bought a lot of plat over the years. These nerfs makes me want to NEVER buy plat ever again!

<whine> Oh but some new players might not like others using WoF and get frustrated </whine>

Well I don't know about you but I don't see a lot of "new" players doing sorties, doing top rank syndicate missions, Kuva floods or Axi fissure missions. But lets cater to them anyway cause they MIGHT buy plat.  And let's piss off our veteran players who have bought a lot of plat in the past and have reason to buy more if needed but now may choose not to. 

This is by far not the first time DE has nerf'd a frame I have run all the time with but it may be the last time for me. 

<note> I might not post in the forums but I have been an active PC player for a long time. I've just always chosen to speak to other in-game instead of on the forums until now, </note>

 

Edited February 4, 2018 by Choralone42

[CryoSpecter]

3 hours ago, Maka.Bones said:

her 2 is decent, yes... but the need to constantly reapply it at 35 energy, is kinda bad. Would be better if it worked more like titania's lamp, or banshee's silence.

Her 3 sucks. Really, it stops being useful after lvl 15.... yes you can re-cast it and stack it, but it costs 75 energy each time. Cast it 5 times, to be useful, and that's almost all your energy gone. Assuming you also primed them with accelerant, you've lost 485 energy, and you probably have 10-15 seconds left on the aoe... ok so now how are you going to get enough energy to cast another 5 circles, and also cast accelerant?  Not to mention, that would be very static & boring gameplay, with poor range for AoE damage (excluding the initial heatwave, which does crap damage past lvl 35)

 

That's my point... For ember to be viable, her abilities need to be constantly casted... WoF was the only ability that could be consistently upheld... and that's *one* ability. She was always considered kinda bad for endgame, now she's gonna be worse.

 

If you want to give her survivability, she will need to have abilities that will scale with the level of enemies

those are no efficiency energy costs for 3 and only streamline for her 2...no abilities are cheap to cast without efficiency... the devs have made it clear they don't want us to be able to spam abilities for absolutely no loss. Whether it be efficiency, duration, range,  or strength, if you wanna be able to do something with your abilities, something else will have to suffer. That's how they create build balance.

[NightmareT12]

I believe Rebecca stated the armor was not getting touched, only the damage output.

[Dracario]

My Opinion on the Mag changes as explained here and on the Devstream yesterday

Polarize

Pros

• The change to the shards is alright. Considering that sometimes a Mag player casting Polarize randomly chooses enemies to instantly die sometimes, the damage from the shards is a welcomed change, now Magnetized will be even more deadly than before.

Cons

• Does not address the issue of Polarize's armor stripping mechanic. Furthermore, Shield Transference will be soon outclassed by Crush. Will be explained later.

 

Crush

Pros

• Replaced Crush's old animation with Shield Polarize's animation is a good call as it allows Mag to continue to be mobile all the while dealing damage along the way. Crush also being able to restore shields all the while granting overshields is a nice incentive to have players use the ability more often when the shards are lying around. With a bunch of shards in one area can certainly wipe out a wave.

Cons

• New Crush is stepping on the shoes of Polarize's augment Shield Transference. Crush now can restore shields AND give over-shields. This is a better version of Shield Transference, this is essentially a team skill Shield Transference. I personally am all for Crush to have this trait and make Shield Transference do a different effect instead as Shield Transference is a selfish augment. Alternatively, a better change would be to make Shield Transference do what new Crush gives: Over-shields to allies.

[Cornelius.EE]

4 hours ago, Uzkost said:

This means in sorties I can CC for half as long and I CC half as much area

Sadly, it's even worse. Half the radius means 1/4 the area.

Edited February 4, 2018 by Cornelius.EE

[Almagnus1]

5 hours ago, Tengetsu96 said:

I've barely used Ember since I got her a year ago - Can not see where the "squishy and weak" complaints are coming from

Level 80-120 enemies are all you need to be prepared for, very few frames are balanced for 4hr Survival Missions

This build proves the point that Ember's kit isn't worth using because it's min/maxed for survivability at the expense of Ember's kit.

And it's a build that's going to eat it hardcore if you run into a Leech/Parasitic Eximus (or have an Eximus Stronghold sortie).  By the way, use Hunter Adrenaline instead of Rage because Hunter Adrenaline is a strictly better Rage.

[Maka.Bones]

28 minutes ago, Cryoguard said:

those are no efficiency energy costs for 3 and only streamline for her 2...no abilities are cheap to cast without efficiency... the devs have made it clear they don't want us to be able to spam abilities for absolutely no loss. Whether it be efficiency, duration, range,  or strength, if you wanna be able to do something with your abilities, something else will have to suffer. That's how they create build balance.

If we built ember around efficieny, we would do insignificant damage to hgher level targets  *because ember is based around "heat-damage" which sucks against armor scaling* so we're forced to build her around power. 

Which would increase the cost of the abilities....

 

Dude, you don't seem like you've tried to use ember against higher lvl mobs... try killing something without your WoF. Really, i honestly mean this. Try your pure efficiency build. 

[Almagnus1]

4 hours ago, BornWithTeeth said:

(No Corrupted Mods, no Quick Thinking)

You're gonna be completely screwed with the changes unless you either plan on using Accelerant as your CC because half the range of WoF means your CC on WoF goes down to basically polearm melee range...

In other words, completely and totally useless CC because a Bombard will one-shot you because Ember's armor isn't anything to write home about.

So why are you cheering for these changes again?

 

[Maka.Bones]

I really don't want to say "the only way to play ember is with her 4" but that's honnestly her most efficient/survival/practical skill... which imo, it means ember sucks. I've tried building her for accelerant, and fireball/fireblast, and the results were crap when compared to "press 4 to win"... in fact, I was better off without using her abilities period, and only using my weapons.... that doesn't describe a caster frame.  It's either "build full power str, to kill with abilities" or "build range/efficiency, for crowd control" in which case, she's no longer a caster frame.

 

[TotallyLagging]

7 hours ago, BornWithTeeth said:

Thank you for trying to be productive!

 

I very much like the thrust of your thinking, that if WOF is having its range reduced then it should have some kind of defensive function as well. As it stands, Firequake is an excellent defence because it applies some nice reliable wide area CC allowing you to not get hit too much. Perhaps an Augment to take Firequake's place? When WoF is at full power/minimum range, enemies firing on Ember take an accuracy penalty?

 

I'd happily accept higher energy costs in exchange for not losing the range as well.

maybe firequake could act as a second WoF of some sorts that doesn't deal damage but knocks down enemies and isn't affected by the gradual range reduction

so at max power you have the normal WoF with 2x damage and 0.5x range + firequake with 0.1x damage and 1x range

[Maka.Bones]

@Cryoguard I think the biggest flaw with your reasoning, and the biggest thing you're missing... is that ember does heat damage. Heat damage sucks against most enemies... and it sucks against *all* enemies, at sortie levels.... unless maybe you're fighting infested, in which case it's only good VS trash. Which makes her a really bad caster frame. Which is why I said, it would be overkill to increase her energy cost. Since the only way to kill things with a heat build, is again, by building full power (thus, forgetting her efficiency).

Edited February 4, 2018 by Maka.Bones

[Maka.Bones]

2 minutes ago, TotallyLagging said:

maybe firequake could act as a second WoF of some sorts that doesn't deal damage but knocks down enemies and isn't affected by the gradual range reduction

so at max power you have the normal WoF with 2x damage and 0.5x range + firequake with 0.1x damage and 1x range

I like dis.

[DroopingPuppy]

I don't think that turn off it and turn on for each 7~8sec is a sane idea. Remember that WOF is NOT an one handed action. Now we are return to the old Ember again, that needs to cast WOF for every single movement.

In addition to already vast requirement of mod slots, now she requires Natural Talent as well, and she can't do anything other than move and cast WOF, really. WOF is a dead one if it is applied without a fix.

 

Well, even if WOF is removed from the game if the other three are reworked for good and makes Ember alive that's fine. Although she become the new Ash then.

Edited February 4, 2018 by DroopingPuppy