The fourth weapon in your arsenal: Warframes

[Colyeses]

Alternatively titled "Why I'm very frustrated with these two dev workshops".

When I initially joined this game, I thought I would see Warframes with unique powers and would eventually find one to suit my preferred playstyle: A caster type of frame. Something that is relatively easy to kill, but wields devastating offensive power that could level armies!

The Warframe is a weapon. Some parts of the Warframe lore actually push for this idea too. I believe one of the Titania journals referred to the warframe as such. The Saryn Prime intro certainly implied it. I think the Jordas Golem called Atlas a weapon too.

But, unfortunately... The current design philosophy does not reflect that. While we do have some Warframes that can deal relevant quantities of damage, that can compete with ordinary weaponry, the majority of them, if they have a damaging ability, see it gather dust. Unused and forgotten. Fireball. Freeze. Shock. Psychic Bolts. Blazing Chakram. Soul Punch. Smite...

There's some exceptions. Mesa's peacemakers will still see some use. Mostly because they tag in on the weapon system, getting benefits from secondary weapon mods. Ash's Bladestorm, with its finisher damage, ignores most of the enemy's scaling. And ultimately, there's Nidus, who can accumulate a whopping 10000% bonus damage through Virulence stacks. Sadly, he needs it.

It frustrates me immensely that this issue, in all this time, has not been picked up on, or visited, or fixed. I don't even know if it's on DE's radar. I kind of doubt it, I mean... Spectral scream is getting its movement penalty lifted. Okay. It still does negligible quantities of damage, though... And while Ember is getting her World on Fire changed to make her less of a mass murderer, there doesn't seem to be any mention of Fireball getting any kind of help.

By contrast, the Arca Plasmor, whose room-sweeping capabilities are astounding, is getting a bit of a buff.

At the moment, a Warframe is not a weapon. It is a carrier of weapons. Your primary, secondary and melee do the work. Your warframe has one directive: Stay alive. You can control opponents. You can boost your allies. You can heal, you can build a protective shell, you can raise your armour...

But your warframe can almost never take down an enemy.

Imagine a Tier 3 Sortie with the modifier: No weapons. Warframes only.

Who would you pick?

Probably one of the aforementioned ones: Nidus, Ash or Mesa. Maybe Octavia, however her Mallet may work. Would you pick Ember for that, whose sole specialty is supposed to be damage output? Would you think of building Frost for anything other than Snow Globe? Would you consider Volt? Or Saryn? Mirage? Equinox? Chroma? Banshee?

I want DE to reconsider the position of a Warframe's offensive capabilities in this game, to adjust their design philosophy on finding a way to make it work. There's abilities that aren't being used and concepts that aren't feasible with the current strategy, and it's making the game miss out on depth. And with repeated nerfs to Warframes (Direct or indirect, like Nullifiers) and the occasional buffs to weapons, I'm starting to feel like that isn't going to change, and that I'm wasting my time holding out for a warframe that suits me just right. It's starting to feel like Warframes will slowly be phased out, and only the guns will be left.

For all the awe-inspiring powers that Warframes are supposed to have...

I want more than just one that can compete with a standard pistol. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

I'm confused, you're calling them weapons, when what they are is Gear or, more specifically, Armour.

The same way that in other RPGs you can put on different gear that adds different effects, like tanks, ships or (a little close to home) combat suits, they carry the weapons and you pilot them. What else do you think an Operator is than the pilot of the Warframe Armour?

Even in the Lore, the reason that frames exist is not as a weapon, but as a vessel for the power that the Operator's body could not contain originally. The War Within taught them how to do that, to a degree, but still they're only children. The frames are false bodies for their power, armour for the Operator, prisms that convert the Void energy of the Tenno into concentrated form.

[Colyeses]

3 minutes ago, Thaylien said:

I'm confused, you're calling them weapons, when what they are is Gear or, more specifically, Armour.

The same way that in other RPGs you can put on different gear that adds different effects, like tanks, ships or (a little close to home) combat suits, they carry the weapons and you pilot them. What else do you think an Operator is than the pilot of the Warframe Armour?

Even in the Lore, the reason that frames exist is not as a weapon, but as a vessel for the power that the Operator's body could not contain originally. The War Within taught them how to do that, to a degree, but still they're only children. The frames are false bodies for their power, armour for the Operator, prisms that convert the Void energy of the Tenno into concentrated form.

The lore refers to Warframes as weapons several times. And if they are not intended to be weapons, why add these damage based abilities in the first place?

[DiosGX]

Nobody ever remembers Atlas...

Also, Smite is a damage-scaling ability now. Try casting it on heavies, whom have massive HP pools relative to the trash mobs. I enjoy casting it on level 100+ Bursas and laughing hysterically at the 50K+ damage it does for virtually zero cost. 

The abilities you're looking for exist, you just aren't looking deep enough.

[Colyeses]

3 minutes ago, DiosGX said:

Nobody ever remembers Atlas...

Also, Smite is a damage-scaling ability now. Try casting it on heavies, whom have massive HP pools relative to the trash mobs. I enjoy casting it on level 100+ Bursas and laughing hysterically at the 50K+ damage it does for virtually zero cost. 

The abilities you're looking for exist, you just aren't looking deep enough.

35% of target max HP, maximum. You need 3 casts to deal one enemy's HP in damage, which is subsequently spread out over several orbs. That's... Not a lot.

[Birdframe_Prime]

5 minutes ago, Colyeses said:

The lore refers to Warframes as weapons several times. And if they are not intended to be weapons, why add these damage based abilities in the first place?

Because they needed to fight a war, why else? Each warframe was created with a purpose to convert Void energy into different effects, some effects are good for damage, some for CC, some for healing or buffing.

There is nothing that says a warframe has to deal Damage in and of itself. Harrow, for example, is one of the strongest frames out there and not one of his abilities deals damage. Loki has been one of the most powerful frames in the game since inception, trivialising end-game content by stripping off weapons, being invisible and able to draw aggro, only his 4th deals any damage at all, and that only a tiny amount.

Your argument is fundamentally flawed because you seem to think that every frame should deal damage to be effective. Damage caps. Even the most damaging abilities in the game cap out without boosting from another frame and some frames simply don't need damage because their purpose, their design, is to do another aspect of combat more effectively. Trinity heals, Banshee has one of the greatest damage-boosting abilities in the game with Sonar, and Rhino has one of the best Crowd Control abilities out there.

Also:

7 minutes ago, Colyeses said:

35% of target max HP, maximum. You need 3 casts to deal one enemy's HP in damage, which is subsequently spread out over several orbs. That's... Not a lot.

That's a max of 35% of max HP per orb, the damage of the initial cast is numbers based, not percentage based. The number of orbs increases with Strength, too, so that's 35% of max health with anywhere from 6 to 22 orbs (or up to 770% of max health as damage split between the orbs, a balanced Strength build gives you 15, which is still over 500%). Even if there are other enemies around to absorb some of the orbs, you're still also guaranteeing a radiation proc to draw aggro away.

But that's not really the point.

The point of frames, whether they deal damage or not, is to be the mobile platform, the incredibly mobile platform, for Tenno to pilot. Weapons add to things, and some warframes can ignore their weapons for abilities, but warframes aren't all damage dealers and they don't have to be.

[Colyeses]

4 minutes ago, Thaylien said:

Because they needed to fight a war, why else? Each warframe was created with a purpose to convert Void energy into different effects, some effects are good for damage, some for CC, some for healing or buffing.

There is nothing that says a warframe has to deal Damage in and of itself. Harrow, for example, is one of the strongest frames out there and not one of his abilities deals damage. Loki has been one of the most powerful frames in the game since inception, trivialising end-game content by stripping off weapons, being invisible and able to draw aggro, only his 4th deals any damage at all, and that only a tiny amount.

Your argument is fundamentally flawed because you seem to think that every frame should deal damage to be effective. Damage caps. Even the most damaging abilities in the game cap out without boosting from another frame and some frames simply don't need damage because their purpose, their design, is to do another aspect of combat more effectively. Trinity heals, Banshee has one of the greatest damage-boosting abilities in the game with Sonar, and Rhino has one of the best Crowd Control abilities out there.

Also:

That's a max of 35% of max HP per orb, the damage of the initial cast is numbers based, not percentage based. The number of orbs increases with Strength, too, so that's 35% of max health with anywhere from 6 to 22 orbs (or up to 770% of max health as damage split between the orbs, a balanced Strength build gives you 15, which is still over 500%). Even if there are other enemies around to absorb some of the orbs, you're still also guaranteeing a radiation proc to draw aggro away.

But that's not really the point.

The point of frames, whether they deal damage or not, is to be the mobile platform, the incredibly mobile platform, for Tenno to pilot. Weapons add to things, and some warframes can ignore their weapons for abilities, but warframes aren't all damage dealers and they don't have to be.

It refers to the Warframes as weapons. You don't refer to a soldier's armour as a weapon. You don't refer to a soldier as a weapon either.

Also, you miss the point of this topic if you think I'm trying to say all Warframes need to do damage to be viable. I know Harrow is one of the strongest right now. I want more than ONE Warframe whose ability damage can compete with weapons without the use of either weapon scaling or enemy scaling. And I want abilities whose only purpose is to deal damage to actually functionally deal damage. The abilities I mentioned are -not- used on higher levels because their damage doesn't scale into lategame. Caster style warframe piloting does not exist past level 25, outside of Nidus. 

Also, it's not -per orb-, it's split over the number of orbs. To quote the wiki: "Each orb deals 75 / 85 / 100 / 150 Radiation damage, plus 15 / 20 / 25 / 35 % of the main target's maximum health and shields divided among the number of orbs"

The more orbs you have, the less damage each one carries. It's not 770% at max, it's 35%.

[PikeOrShield]

Do we really want to go back to the days of Greedy Pull Mag, Miasma Saryn, and old Molecular Prime Nova?

[Colyeses]

8 hours ago, PikeOrShield said:

Do we really want to go back to the days of Greedy Pull Mag, Miasma Saryn, and old Molecular Prime Nova?

Buffing Fireball to be on par with Tonkor will not hurt gameplay. I specifically didn't mention any large AoE damage abilities but rather non-ultimate ones with much smaller AoEs.

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

9 minutes ago, Colyeses said:

Buffing Fireball to be on par with Tonkor will not hurt gameplay. I specifically didn't mention any large AoE damage abilities but rather non-ultimate ones with much smaller AoEs.

Buffing Fireball to be on level with Tonkor will lead to DE making Fireball deal self-damage.

No thank you.

12 hours ago, Colyeses said:

Imagine a Tier 3 Sortie with the modifier: No weapons. Warframes only.

Who would you pick?

This is a flawed concept because DE very much does not want players to simply press one button to win. Abilities that deal damage are limited in some way, shape, or form to ensure that we cannot simply get rid of enemies at will without at least some degree of effort.

Also, Saryn can deal a lot of damage, but she has to use a weapon to spread her spores. It could be the weakest melee weapon in the game, or a gun with a -99.9% damage riven, and it will still let her put out high damage numbers.

Chroma and Equinox are similar: It doesn't matter what weapon you choose (as long as it can actually deal some damage), because the weapon is simply a tool that allows the ability to work. Chroma can make even the worst guns work in sortie 3, and Equinox can kill entire hordes, but only if at least one enemy is killed by a weapon. In fact, with proper co-ordination, a pair of Equinox can infinitely scale the damage from a single enemy death, but that initial death must be caused by a weapon (unless someone else in the party can kill with an ability).

 

[Colyeses]

31 minutes ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

This is a flawed concept because DE very much does not want players to simply press one button to win. Abilities that deal damage are limited in some way, shape, or form to ensure that we cannot simply get rid of enemies at will without at least some degree of effort.

It doesn't have to be. Nidus is kind of evidence of that, where his scaling damage output is tied to the stacking mechanism. But even then, there is very little difference between the way Fireball functions and the way the Lenz functions, or the Pox. It isn't exactly fair to buff the Pox while keeping the Fireball as largely unusable. 

There are hooks and eyes on abilities. That is the very reason we have nullifiers, energy leech eximi, disruptor ancients and Combas. Every faction has something they can use to block your ability use. Only the healer ancient jams weapon use. 

But unfortunately, DE can only think of ultimates as powerful abilities, and can only envision powerful abilities as 'Press 4 to kill entire room'. Anything that isn't a threat to DE's idea of having to put in effort to kill enemies is for some reason also not viable beyond level 20, like the aforementioned abilities. 

There is no reason why Fireball deals such laughable quantities of damage compared to any of the explosive weapons arsenal.

[DawnBlossom]

1 hour ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

Buffing Fireball to be on level with Tonkor will lead to DE making Fireball deal self-damage.

If fireball was able to ignite Ember, her passive would actually be useful - self damage with it, provided it was significantly reduced, could be useful.

[DawnBlossom]

1 hour ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

This is a flawed concept because DE very much does not want players to simply press one button to win.

I'd argue that high level content, where nothing other than weapons are viable, is still press one button to win - that button happens to be mouse 1 rather than number 1.

[DawnBlossom]

There is a significant difference between "viable" and "OP", the fact is that a lot of direct damage abilities are less effective than sneezing in the enemy's face - at least sneezing could inflict a viral proc or something...

Without having Zenurik active, energy is significantly harder to regenerate than ammo is, and by having Zenurik active, you can't use Maudrai. That cuts all of the damage you deal by 30%. Then, your abilities, that you've sacrificed so much to try using, deal about 6 damage? It's just sad.

Many Warframe abilities do have extra functionalities, beyond simply dealing damage, so they shouldn't deal quite as much as weapons do, of course not. AoE abilities like World on Fire shouldn't be OHKO'ing every single enemy on the map, but, with that being said, things like Volt's entire kit lightning bolt, or Ember's fireball, just aren't capable of dealing any respectable damage.

In addition, there's the post that the devs themselves made saying that Ember's speciality is "anything under level 30". This is a half full way of saying Her speciality is that she is good early game, but doesn't scale well. I don't think a Warframe's special feature should be not scaling. If you read that in the flavour text, it wouldn't sell the Warframe to you, would it?

Edited February 7, 2018 by NecroExplosion

[MrTitan123]

19 hours ago, DiosGX said:

Also, Smite is a damage-scaling ability now. Try casting it on heavies, whom have massive HP pools relative to the trash mobs. I enjoy casting it on level 100+ Bursas and laughing hysterically at the 50K+ damage it does for virtually zero cost. 

EXCUSE ME, WHAT?!

[Mokkun108]

Maybe it's just me, but I think what they're trying to achieve by repeatedly nerfing AOE DPS frames is simply to make way for those stupid kids. DE wants us to play operators and use focus instead of Actual warframe powers, so they power down dps warframes.

I despise those kids so much, but I can't stop thinking about it.

 

[Haeen]

I think perhaps you might be looking a bit too generally. A significant portion of the frames are defensive in their design.  Frost for example, does not do immense damage outside of his avalanche and even then, is meant to control the enemy.  So his freeze won't do a lot of damage because it stuns one enemy and slows everyone else around it.

Ice wave will impede an entire group of enemies in a single direction. SO on and so forth.

Some frames like Saryn, use their spores to weaken the enemy and improve their scaling.

Now...there are some that do have significant isues in terms of scaling despite being damage based casters.  Mag and Ember are good examples of this issue.  It will take time though, and part of the problem, and solution, is that the developers are very much in touch with the desires and needs of the community.