Dev Workshop: Warframes Revisited Part 2

[klmx]

5 hours ago, KaeseSchnitte said:

Ember:

• Your proposed World on Fire changes are bad!

You will push Ember into the exact same situation Ash was in until now! You make WoF way more clunky, while the buffs to it is laughably insiginficant. At best, that change will force Ember players to recast WoF every 5 seconds, but nothing else will change. At worst, Ember will be shelved by most players, just like Ash got shelved after you made Bladestorm more clunky.

• Fireball still has an underwhelming mechanic

I'd assume that charging Fireball wont increase its damage to godlike levels, so that anyone would ever feel the need to use that ability. I think that the change to Fireball will be too insignificant to warrant even using the ability, let alone increasing Ember's usability

• The Fire Blast does not incorporate well with the ability or Ember as a whole

While there is nothing wrong with extra damage, I feel like the proposed Fire Blast changes do nothing to help Ember, especially after she gets nerfed. Ignoring the fact that Fire Blast's VFX is most of the time way too intrusive to properly aim through it, Ember is meant to be a caster frame, standing still and aiming with a weapon does not exactly fit her playstyle. Also, Ember has very little survivability, even less after her nerf, so this change will do nothing for her in that regard.

• The Passive is still subpar

The passive should just get replaced with something more useful, for example an Overheat mechanic, which could give Ember a stacking damage reduction and a Power Strength buff when consecutively casting abilities, at the expense of higher energy costs.

As a MR25 Ember Main, I agree with all of those points. I run all of my Ember builds with firequake and while I have used her for speed running low level missions, that isn't my main use for her, far from it in fact.

Since sorties have been introduced I have quite often used her as CC, with either 175% or 250% range, often using the former due to the enemy limit causing saturation and limiting its effectiveness, this allows me to keep my teammates and I safe, even if it could no longer insta-kill them. With 200% power strength I am able to increase the damage of both World on Fire (referred to from here on as WoF) AND my Pure Fire build Ignis Wraith by 5x on effected enemies thanks to her second ability, accelerant. This damage increase enables me to focus kill the enemies while not needing to worry about being 1-hit by all the enemies behind me. I totally understand that the damage and range of WoF is an issue in the lower level missions, but the proposed changes shown in part 1 of this workshop hurt her far more in the high level / end tier then it ever will in lower level missions.

What this is doing for me effectively, is forcing me to build an absolute max range build, with 280% range and 95% strength, simply so that I am able to keep WoF working at an effective 140% range and effective 190% strength, which may just be enough to keep the enemies at bay with firequake. What this does for my other ability I use regularly, accelerant, is make it far less potent, leaving me with 2.375x increased damage instead of 5x.

It is at this point I will point out that despite the nerf to WoF, I will still be able to speed through low level missions, killing everything within 21 Meters even with reduced strength. But I will no longer be anywhere near as effective in level 50+ missions where I prefer to spend most of my time, and where ember speed killing things wasn't an issue, and the increased strength wont even really be noticed, as the range nerf forces me to go all in on range instead of finding a balance between range and strength.

• The change to her 1 is interesting although I can't really use it for CC, and I doubt it will do enough damage to be worth my time to cast instead of just shooting.
• Extra Damage from her 3 is interesting but the ability doesn't do a good job as CC, and I often avoid using it as WoF has a greater range and does not obscure my view of incoming enemies, causing me on many occasions to be downed without even seeing the enemy that downed me.

This will probably be buried but I hope you read it and at least consider my feedback as a veteran player with over 3000 hours in this game.

TL;DR:

1. Reconsider the changes to her WoF, they wont solve the issues at low levels, and instead only hurt the few of us that know how to use her in higher level missions, and those of us who use her for CC.
2. Look at all of her abilities as a whole and make them have better synergy, right now 2 synergizes with 1,3 and 4, however that's the only significant thing she has going for her in that department.
3. Look at her 3 again, the viability issues you have when standing within it make it near useless because the enemies see you long before you can see them. Additionally besides the initial blast, consider increasing the size of the Ring of Fire (by at least 100%, 150% would probably be good (10M Base scaling with range)), and additionally consider making the Fire Fright Augment effects Innate to the ability, I cannot see a reason why a mod slot should be used up just to allow the fire damage on the ring to have a chance to proc. With the current state of the ability (even after proposed changes) I cannot see anyone choosing to run that augment.

[highestcrab3]

so does resonating quake still increase the range of the ability because I do enjoy using banshee as a CC frame in some situations 

[WMan22]

With the Vex armor range buff and the change where you make petrify instant instead of slow enough to get you oneshot while you're trying to petrify, you basically fixed my only gripes with the upcoming warframe reworks (Depending on how powerful Vex Armor and spectral scream is after the buff that is, though I wish holding down the spectral scream button activated it while tapping the spectral scream button changed chroma's element for his entire kit kinda like ivara's arrows), it's all smooth sailing from here pretty much.

Can't wait to see the upcoming melee buffs that are gonna happen alongside the firearm buffs!

[Aranlan]

The chroma change is very nice as well as the atlas change it was much needed, but I want to know if there is anyway we can increase ember survive which is the biggest problem with embers first change. For example bullets the pass through embers fire blast ring will deal x% reduced damage as the bullets are melting as the pass through.

[Archwizard]

Spoiler

To reiterate my feedback from the previous post...

On 2/2/2018 at 5:58 PM, Archwizard said:

ASH

Ash changes are convenient, although they only address one of his many issues (particularly including the limited scalability of his ultimate, being that it only deals a flat amount of Finisher damage outranked by Teleport). That said, the new "fire and forget" method may leave it with some borderline P4TW functionality. Still, the ability to opt into the invulnerability period (at what is not listed in the post as zero additional cost, according to today's stream), or choose to continue striking amidst the chaos, at least makes for some bonus utility from the ability.  
I am half-tempted to say the clones should be used as a Decoy in such case. It would have been pointless to do so back when Ash was attached to it (given the invulnerability, and aggro draw) but the fact that he can stick to invisibility, start the cast and keep wailing on enemies would at least give it strategic value if not meaningful damage. Of course, then you're just going back to Loki...

I'd probably prefer to see it just replaced with an Exalted weapon, using the clones as part of the gimmick.

EDIT - Let me be clear here: this Bladestorm adjustment is just a quality of life change. While the change is appreciated, Ash's kit is far from "fixed." 
Shuriken and Bladestorm each deal a flat amount of direct damage - Finisher damage to be sure, but even Bladestorm will be overshadowed at high levels by Teleport. His kit lacks cohesion, since Shuriken has no practical place in it (nor situational use where Bladestorm can't overshadow it), and the cutscene nature of Bladestorm means it can only tangentially interact with his other skills (ie affecting its cost and uptime).
He's supposed to offer the best offensive kit of the Invisible frames, but Ivara is ultimately more suited for that distinction (between her Exalted weapon, damage boosts, and shared ability to induce melee Finishers... to multiple enemies per cast). I'd be willing to say the sheer simplicity of his kit (in terms of the near lack of interaction between his skills, and only real ceiling to using his ultimate) would make him an ideal Starter frame.

ATLAS

Solid start <Is that a pun? I will attempt to bypass this fault>, although I am concerned that his ultimate offers little more than being a means to deliver the effects of Petrify, better than Petrify - with the Rumblers themselves being sort of a byproduct of that.

There are a lot of opportunities presently missed by the Rumblers, such as:

• Boosting Atlas' combo count when they attack,
• Cloning his abilities while active (at least his 1 and 3),
• Building up their death-explosions over their duration,
• Splitting Atlas' damage taken while active (which puts more value on Petrify),
• Or even with Rubble now, consuming Rubble on the ground to empower them to the level of fallen enemies.

Right now Rumblers just charge into the fray head-first and tend to get themselves destroyed by Nullifier bubbles. It would be nice if their AI was improved to ignore enemies within Nullifier fields, or even if they simply lost health over time within a bubble rather than dying outright. If you can give them a value and a reason for us to keep them up, people will consider using Petrify on its own rather than just toggling Rumblers for the snap CC and healing.

For the record, I am in favor of allowing the Rumbled augment into PVE, just with the slight tweak that it scale like Iron Skin. There's some nice synergy with Landslide and his passive in it, and the ability to bypass AI entirely is a buff unto itself. 

Also something of a missed opportunity not to have Petrify heal the Bulwarks, especially since the synergy with Tectonics is completely removed by using the augment. At the very least, the Bulwark's health pool should contribute to its launch damage.

BANSHEE

I like the concept of the new augment. Banshee's kit exists to be a Marksman - Sonic Boom to keep some distance, Sonar to amplify shots, Silence as a stealth-based defense - but Sound Quake itself is out of place. The idea of the augment allowing her to set a trap for enemies to linger in while she snipes them down would finally give an element of completeness to her kit.

If I might suggest a couple improvements, however, perhaps the augment could also -

• give a projectile element to the Quake, allowing her to set up a spot to root enemies from her sniping roost? The fact that she has to stand near enemies to set it up makes it inconvenient to her Sniper lifestyle; while she can perform other actions, the limited range and duration mean she's tethered to the enemy, which really works against Sonic Boom.
• continue to allow enemies to stand clutching their heads, rather than knocking them down, to better set up for marked shots?
• increase the base cost of the Quake as well in exchange for a slightly longer duration? Right now 3-5 seconds is barely enough for a few pot shots or a brief distraction as you run away, not really a meaningful CC or ultimate-worthy effect.
• turn it into a proximity mine effect, allowing her to delay a quake until enemies are within the area?

CHROMA

All excellent changes. Only three things left for him now:

1. For Effigy to act as a totem for his Elemental Ward and, now, Vex Armor, to complete its description of "strengthening nearby allies."
2. A purpose for Spectral Scream beyond simple damage, which falls off over time. (Preferably some synergy with Effigy...)
3. The ability to swap elements on the fly (ie Khora), and a new passive. (Since he can jump with Scream, why not let him fly like a true dragon?)

EMBER

This is the change I'm least hopeful for. I've long been one of the vocal detractors for World on Fire's ability to melt down crowds at low levels while being useless at high levels, but unfortunately this change will not actually meaningfully change this position for one simple reason:

Players can just turn it off and on again.

The fact that damage would be reduced by such doesn't matter, when its base damage has already proven sufficient for low level content! The damage itself is the least impactful part of the ability as level increases - doubling the damage will only add maybe 5-10 levels to its falloff curve against armored targets. Ultimately we're going to see exactly the same results with World on Fire: with the exception that players will cast it more often (to keep the low-penalty period as long as possible), it will still have disproportionately high up-time, as it did when it was purely affected by Duration. This change is just a soft penalty for not keeping the intended Duration.
I'm already seeing people complaining on Reddit that it's just a step towards turning World on Fire into pre-channeling Desecrate.

Increasing an ability's damage by a flat, predetermined amount is not scalability. Scalability is the rate at which your kit adapts to the increase in levels.
If it consistently reduces TTK, if it consistently plays to the enemy's strengths or weaknesses, if it lets you stop to breathe for more than 2 seconds on a Sortie, it probably scales. If it's more costly and less effective on a target than pick any gun, you can bet your bottom dollar it doesn't scale.
This is exactly the same issue we saw with Miasma "scaling" for 200% more damage or Reckoning "scaling" for 50% more damage on proc'd targets. Ultimately the cost-efficiency of killing the target with these abilities doesn't have much upward movement.

Doubling the damage isn't enough to make it an end-game damage tool. Until the day enemy armor gets reworked, it will never be enough.

All of this, and the rest of her kit goes unchanged!

• Three out of four of her abilities are delivery vehicles for a Heat proc which does not stack. When World on Fire is active, there is no reason to use Fireball, particularly now that World on Fire can inflict an even stronger proc (with greater cost-efficiency).
  • Personally I would suggest turning Fireball into some type of scaling damage tool, like a %-based Heat proc effect (to play into her focus on low-armor enemies), and then basing her ultimate on amplifying or even spreading those procs somehow. If Damage 2.5 is coming, let her Heat procs stack, since it seems like her kit means to spam them.
• Fire Blast's ring serves little purpose, given that its damage has no baseline CC, it provides no benefit to Ember or her allies, and enemies will actively attempt to path around it if they can (a behavior they don't even have for actual fire hazards in mission tiles). The only effective part of the ability is the radial knockback.
  Even with the augment, enemies with sufficiently high speed can often charge through between ticks (where the middle is a safe area to them as well), before it can stun them. Considering its intended niche is dealing with exactly the low-armored melee enemies who can bypass it, this seems like a problem.
  • Give Ember a survival bonus for placing the rings, like healing while within, or even using the smoke to block line of sight so enemies have to charge in. Let Fire Blast cause damage within the circle of flames, or at least make it a bonus to Fire Fright.
• Ember's passive is virtually useless. Corpus enemies do not regularly have the means to set players on fire, nor do Infested until Arson Eximi (Exima? Eximuses?) walk onto the scene; your most reliable options are Grineer enemies (where their armor will overpower the bonus anyway and the damage would more than likely kill you), damage from mission tiles that deliver Heat procs like Sabotages, or self-damage (ie Castanas). Also consider that the number of frames available who can purify or provide immunity to proc effects has rapidly gone up in recent years, including one of her own Conclave augments.

GARA

The wall change is accepted, though I'd like to see a few more changes, like...

• Making the Puncture side of Shattered Lash a projectile with Punch Through, so that its range is comparable to the Slash swing.
• Giving Spectrorage more scalability.

And while I don't see it being a popular suggestion, you might want to look at _{^{nerfing Splinter Storm...}}

MAG

I'm curious what the phrasing of Polarize's "as well as the percentage of damage done to that specific enemy" means, given that DE has a historical tendency to play more to the letter of their announcements than to the way by which they would be interpreted (ie "Freeze is going to be more like Ember's Fireball, we're internally calling it Arctic Blast, HUGE CHANGE"... being literally a damage increase equal to Fireball's, and a nerf to the CC component, in a time when we were begging for splash CC).
Rebecca swears this means some type of scalability, but... see the bold under "Ember" for my caution there.

Meanwhile... for the first time in ages, Crush actually has a purpose! Although, I will say it does seem disappointing that said purpose seems to be covering the original intent of Shield Polarize - and I don't just mean the augment either, which as stated on the stream, is now in desperate need for re-evaluation.

VOLT

Discharge no longer has a damage cap! Lovely!

Really just leaves removing the movement penalty from carrying Electric Shields. Increasing the carry cost relative to the player's movement speed completely defeats the point of allowing you to move with it, since it flips the synergy with Speed on its head into a penalty.

And might I also suggest, doubling the base cost and duration of Speed so that players don't need to cast it as often?

ZEPHYR

All good, exciting changes. The additional control over her Tornadoes, streamlining of her kit, and new ability to hover during Tail Wind means a lot of exciting opportunity for aerial dominance and a unique niche post-Parkour 2.0.

The effects of her Air Burst seem a little uninspired (if you give it a T name, you can make her kit alliterate!), but more ranged options are always welcome in her kit, and I'm willing to hold judgement until we see it. Giving it the Divebomb augment could at least provide some opportunity for additional synergy with Tornado.

So just to briefly cover a few of my thoughts on today's update...

ASH

Feedback unchanged. Quality of life change. Ash still needs cohesion in his kit.

In fact, arguably today's update makes the issue worse since it makes Bladestorm even more efficient than Shuriken.

ATLAS

I'm curious how the instantaneous nature of Petrify will affect its ability to heal Rumblers.

I think my main concern about the Rubble mechanic is that, being dependent on enemy death, it'll be really powerful at low levels when it will be overkill, and harder to accumulate at higher levels when you will really need it.

If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion for the Ore Gaze change: Instead of just making it a blatant clone of Desecrate and Pilfering Swarm, perhaps it's a good time to alter its function? There's untapped potential for Petrify to be used on allies to increase their armor, especially with Atlas' summoning abilities.

BANSHEE

Not sure how to feel about this. While there's an obvious loss in CC potential, I could see that being justified given that the point of the change was not to allow for overly-long periods of CC. I'm not too worried about that.

No, my main concern is that with the augment costing only 25 energy, the instant damage will put it in direct competition with Sonic Boom. One step forward, two steps back.

If I might make a suggestion: What if the augment changed to be sort of a landmine effect you could throw? Instead of continuously quaking for 5 seconds with only 1 tick of damage, you could place it down for a delayed blast that hits each enemy that enters within the next 60 sec once. It wouldn't stunlock rooms, you would still have reason to recast it so you can affect enemies more than once, and you still have reason to use Sonic Boom to push enemies into it, but you have more freedom while it's active.

CHROMA

Not much changed here (was the aura range of Vex Armor previously mentioned?), other than Vex Armor being refreshable. I suppose there's some Risk-Reward in there.
If not for the fact that its damage formula is getting nerfed, I'd almost argue being able to continuously stretch out the buff would be overpowered.

Previous feedback virtually unchanged: Spectral Scream and Effigy need more utility within the kit given their competition with weapons, and we're still waiting on swappable elements.

EMBER

Not sure how to feel about this one, either.

I have my doubts that Fireball's changes will give it more of a place in Ember's kit - while you can potentially charge and stack the Napalm blasts for some decent damage, it's still a flat amount of damage output that will sharply diminish with armor, which still puts it in direct competition with her abilities, now more than ever. I also have some concerns with this given that Fireball's original iteration was able to set down fire patches, but they were tiny and frequently glitched to get caught in the air.

While I'm pleased that Fire Blast's rings now have a tangible purpose within Ember's kit, and potentially incredible synergy with Accelerant, I have concerns that it takes exactly the effects of two of her augments, neither of which has changed.

Ultimately I think my big concern is that Ember is turning back in on herself. Neither of these changes add anything new to her kit that she wasn't previously able to do - put down fire traps, inflict fire damage, buff weapon damage - which just means that she doubles down on her flaws (like the fact that Accelerant can't improve Heat-based combination elements, enemies running through fire traps unaffected, competition between her direct damage abilities) without gaining any new strengths.
However, I can see significant potential in these changes if the Napalm blasts can not only continuously inflict a stacking Heat proc, but as I suggested before, deals a percentage of target health, to give its damage output distinction from both World on Fire and her weapons. I might also suggest revisiting Accelerant's augment, if not Fireball's.

As before, her passive is unchanged, and the issues with the World on Fire changes still stand.

GARA

Previous feedback unchanged.

MAG

I have concerns with the Polarize augment. While jamming weapons is always appreciated, you have to bear in mind that you'll most frequently be casting Polarize for shards to maintain its synergy with Magnetize... which is further buffed when enemies can fire weapons freely.

You know how players have been complaining about Nyx's passive disarming all of her MC'd targets and forcing them to do less damage to each other? It's like that.

Previous Crush feedback unchanged.

ZEPHYR

All still exciting stuff!

I have my concerns about the usefulness of the new Tail Wind - Tail Wind's damage isn't usually her biggest asset - but if it applies the bonus for every enemy caught in her Tornadoes when she flies into them, I could definitely see potential.

[TyrianMollusk]

5 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

CHROMA:

• Can cast other abilities while using Spectral Scream.

But... but... Chroma doesn't have abilities that DO anything.  The closet is Spectral Scream, already, and its whole problem is doing less than just not using it!  Don't let us activate things that don't do anything, let us DO something.  Like fire-breathing melee.  Chroma has hands!  He's not a t-rex!

 

ATLAS:

• Petrify is now a single cast instead of a channel ability, instantly Petrifying enemies in front of you regardless of level!

Sorry, but this is so boring!  Another freeze blast.  A better, moving petrify plus landslides was at least on the novel side.  Something a little different.  Freeze, punch, freeze, punch...  Probably effective enough, but boring.  You can do better than boring.

Definitely not pleased with global rubble decay.  That sounds incredibly annoying, having to constantly drip-feed rubble to refresh the duration of stone on the ground.  I'm sure it's just for efficiency, but this seems too far the other way.

 

EMBER:

• Fireball can now be held and charged for additional damage. Upon impact, Fireball will leave behind a Napalm-like flame that damages enemies.
• Fire Blast will now add heat damage to weapons that fire through it.

This is a good start, but you're still stuck with a critical, core problem: World on Fire was just a bad idea.  Changing its size, its cost, its damage, none of this matters because it's still just going and doing your job, a boring AoE damage zone.  Just rip this band-aid off already!  Let us play with it.  Make it do something with fire status, like have fire status within the AoE burn out its damage faster (more duration, faster burn), then trigger the WoF explosion when it ends.  Do something!  Involve us.  That was the whole point of changing Ember here.

Also, added heat damage from Ember needs to be special, gen-u-ine, non-combining heat damage.  It needs to always be fire, not just boost so-and-so's radiation damage.  Ember doesn't care about radiation. More fire!

 

Looking forward to the update.  Well, except for the abusive max ammo slashing on explosive toys.  Those will be markedly less fun, and my partner and I were big fans of them.  Lots of sad arsenal slots there.

[Nafraat]

Citation

• When interacting with nullifiers, power-created avatars (Atlas’ Rumblers, Nekros’ Shadows, etc) will have their health drained, instead of instantly disappearing.

This is something that bothered m for a while! Thank you so much for this. Could it be possible to extend it to some abilities that must be "leveled up" like Equinox's Pacify/Provoke or Maim/Mend or even Inaros' Scarab swarm? There's nothing more infuriating than seeing 5 minutes of careful ability building being ruined by a nullifier hugging me by surprise.

 

Other than that these changes look awesome and will definitely shake things up!

Keep up the good work and thanks for what you do!

[chainchompguy3]

Chroma: Personally, I feel awkward about the change to let Vex armor be recast to preserve buffs. As it stands, a high enough power strength leads to absurd damage reduction through armor buff. This was seemingly balanced out by it requiring constant recasts, resetting the buffs and thus forcing a period of vulnerability.

I even made a little headcannon explanation for this, that it was a homage to how dragons would often return to their safe place (Cave, castle, etc), between raids on human villages.

Without that, I can't help but feel that it's a bit too strong, with it offering both a massive damage buff and massive armor buff, just for recasting it occasionally.

======

Ember changes seem interesting enough, but overall, I don't see myself rushing to get her anytime soon. She seems like a glass cannon that doesn't actually pack a punch. The other roles players use her for (Firequake-focused CC-frame, Accelerant buff-frame), just seem too gimmicky and unintended. Each of those gimmick roles relies on 1 ability, and trying to make use of it in spite of the rest of her kit.

======

Zephyr changes bewilder me. I don't play Zephyr, probably never will, but I was under the impression she was a CC focused frame. Yet now she's getting buffs to her damage output? I mean, it's cool and all, but if the buffs are strong enough, then I'm confused as to her purpose, and If the buffs are too weak, then why even bother?

======

one of the only questions I have left is whether or not Atlas's Rubble is Nullifiable.

 

 

All other changes I haven't commented on are great.

(While I personally would have hoped that Atlas got a complete overhaul, to make him 100% punch frame and remove the rocks, the changes proposed would flesh out the rock portion of his kit so that it would be bearable. I will still feel sad that we didn't get a super-simple frame that was nothing but punching, but at the very least Atlas will be an actually considerable frame, and not just a meme.)

[(PSN)TheHypothes]

6 minutes ago, klmx said:

As a MR25 Ember Main, I agree with all of those points. I run all of my Ember builds with firequake and while I have used her for speed running low level missions, that isn't my main use for her, far from it in fact.

Since sorties have been introduced I have quite often used her as CC, with either 175% or 250% range, often using the former due to the enemy limit causing saturation and limiting its effectiveness, this allows me to keep my teammates and I safe, even if it could no longer insta-kill them. With 200% power strength I am able to increase the damage of both World on Fire (referred to from here on as WoF) AND my Pure Fire build Ignis Wraith by 5x on effected enemies thanks to her second ability, accelerant. This damage increase enables me to focus kill the enemies while not needing to worry about being 1-hit by all the enemies behind me. I totally understand that the damage and range of WoF is an issue in the lower level missions, but the proposed changes shown in part 1 of this workshop hurt her far more in the high level / end tier then it ever will in lower level missions.

What this is doing for me effectively, is forcing me to build an absolute max range build, with 280% range and 95% strength, simply so that I am able to keep WoF working at an effective 140% range and effective 190% strength, which may just be enough to keep the enemies at bay with firequake. What this does for my other ability I use regularly, accelerant, is make it far less potent, leaving me with 2.375x increased damage instead of 5x.

It is at this point I will point out that despite the nerf to WoF, I will still be able to speed through low level missions, killing everything within 21 Meters even with reduced strength. But I will no longer be anywhere near as effective in level 50+ missions where I prefer to spend most of my time, and where ember speed killing things wasn't an issue, and the increased strength wont even really be noticed, as the range nerf forces me to go all in on range instead of finding a balance between range and strength.

• The change to her 1 is interesting although I can't really use it for CC, and I doubt it will do enough damage to be worth my time to cast instead of just shooting.
• Extra Damage from her 3 is interesting but the ability doesn't do a good job as CC, and I often avoid using it as WoF has a greater range and does not obscure my view of incoming enemies, causing me on many occasions to be downed without even seeing the enemy that downed me.

This will probably be buried but I hope you read it and at least consider my feedback as a veteran player with over 3000 hours in this game.

TL;DR:

1. Reconsider the changes to her WoF, they wont solve the issues at low levels, and instead only hurt the few of us that know how to use her in higher level missions, and those of us who use her for CC.
2. Look at all of her abilities as a whole and make them have better synergy, right now 2 synergizes with 1,3 and 4, however that's the only significant thing she has going for her in that department.
3. Look at her 3 again, the viability issues you have when standing within it make it near useless because the enemies see you long before you can see them. Additionally besides the initial blast, consider increasing the size of the Ring of Fire (by at least 100%, 150% would probably be good (10M Base scaling with range)), and additionally consider making the Fire Fright Augment effects Innate to the ability, I cannot see a reason why a mod slot should be used up just to allow the fire damage on the ring to have a chance to proc. With the current state of the ability (even after proposed changes) I cannot see anyone choosing to run that augment.

Quick honest question: If you can recast WoF periodically to reset the ability to how it currently operates, and it sounds like you'll have a fairly reasonable amount of time in between recasts, is that just an inconvenience for your current setup you're upset about or is this honest to goodness killing her kit in your opinion? 

 

We're slowly seeing more and more "leave it on forever" setups being phased out, so it should be no surprise that WoF was eventually going to get reevaluated.

[DroopingPuppy]

6 minutes ago, (PS4)Vagnar said:

Quick honest question: If you can recast WoF periodically to reset the ability to how it currently operates, and it sounds like you'll have a fairly reasonable amount of time in between recasts, is that just an inconvenience for your current setup you're upset about or is this honest to goodness killing her kit in your opinion? 

 

We're slowly seeing more and more "leave it on forever" setups being phased out, so it should be no surprise that WoF was eventually going to get reevaluated.

You need to recast it about each 6 to 8 seconds in order to keep acceptable range. And World on Fire is not an one-handed action. Also requirement for too fast recast requires her to put all the resource at World on fire so she can't cast Accelerate at all. That means, Ember can't do anything other than move and cast World on Fire (and recast it) all the time.

 

Not to mention that World on Fire has very short range. Able to move while upkeeping it is the only reason why it is useful despite of its pitiful range, and actually range around 21m is not that bad consider you can move freely. It is simply useless if you cut it half.

[Arniox]

6 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

Although still a singular cast allowing free movement, Resonating Quake will only hit enemies once as it expands outward, dealing a mass of damage at once

I thought maybe I was going to be annoyed by this... But meh.

The game changes too much to really get stuck on things for too long.

[Ardhanarishvara]

29 minutes ago, VRKestrel said:

Just a reminder, though: Petrified enemies are fully resistant to status, which could make it more difficult for Atlas (and more importantly the entire group) to keep up the damage/ kills.

Just like being frozen or glassed, however, it also happens to preserve status effects already in place. Do keep in mind that being stoned now constitutes an additional damage buff to Landslide, which was already strong as heck.

[Alanthier]

1 hour ago, Kalvorax said:

because its NOT a scaling ability like his 3......its a flat increase.

Then they should REMOVE the whole "stop what you're doing so it does it's absurd animation on cast" and make it like vex, where you can KEEP moving while you cast it.

[BornWithTeeth]

6 minutes ago, (PS4)Vagnar said:

Quick honest question: If you can recast WoF periodically to reset the ability to how it currently operates, and it sounds like you'll have a fairly reasonable amount of time in between recasts, is that just an inconvenience for your current setup you're upset about or is this honest to goodness killing her kit in your opinion? 

 

We're slowly seeing more and more "leave it on forever" setups being phased out, so it should be no surprise that WoF was eventually going to get reevaluated.

Yes, this is much more a crippling impediment than a minor inconvenience. The constant casting and recasting will drain energy, interrupt flow, and leave Ember vulnerable.

[mrtouchngo]

Thanks for taking people's feedback into account. I'm really excited and hopeful for these changes. Gara was pretty much my favorite frame when she came out up until her nerf, and I'm looking forward to being able to use her Mass Vitrify again and not have it shatter on arrival.

One thing, though: Gara's Spectrorage has been subpar since release. Any chance that it could be retuned?

[Arniox]

6 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

CHROMA:

• Can cast other abilities while using Spectral Scream.
• Spectral Scream damage now affected by Vex Armor damage buff.
• Vex Armor aura range increased (currently 18 meters base range).
• Vex Armor can now be recast to preserve accumulated buffs.

I still feel like his armour buff is dead now... 

@[DE]Rebecca, and @[DE]Connor, can you please tell me whether the new chroma calculation is now for the damage and armour, or is the armour buff using the original calculation? 

[klmx]

9 minutes ago, (PS4)Vagnar said:

Quick honest question: If you can recast WoF periodically to reset the ability to how it currently operates, and it sounds like you'll have a fairly reasonable amount of time in between recasts, is that just an inconvenience for your current setup you're upset about or is this honest to goodness killing her kit in your opinion? 

 

We're slowly seeing more and more "leave it on forever" setups being phased out, so it should be no surprise that WoF was eventually going to get reevaluated.

To me it feels like her kit is being killed, if I don't want to change from my old builds I am going to have to recast every 5 seconds which basically means I am sitting and just casting over and over again, unable to do anything else, as others have pointed out it isn't a 1 handed action and that means i cannot be shooting or focusing on other things. If I change to a build where leaving it on is viable, then the other 3 abilities are massively compromised damage wise.

[Ardhanarishvara]

Question for WoF debaters: Is there a reason you can't just stack more range mods on than you did previously? Overextended in particular seems like it'd achieve pretty much turning the ability into its old range just with a higher channel cost. Of course Stretch will have reduced effectiveness, but...

[Jeoxz]

Making Chroma's 3 recastable kinda kills the mechanic of turning damage into power, wouldn't it be better to half the bonuses everytime it's refreshed?

[Ssekys]

The only issue I have with this @[DE]Rebecca and @[DE]Connor is that these "additional" Ember changes do nothing to make her better, and I will reiterate again that if you go through with these changes, she will be a dead warframe and your sales on Ember Prime unvaulting packs are going to go down the drain. Ember only survives in endgame through the CC that her 4 provides, and with a lower range PLUS the 6 enemy cap, she will be completely useless with/without Firequake. 

We need an actual change to give her survivability or she will cease being Sortie 3 viable if these changes go through without being tweaked.

[Maka.Bones]

Ty for the update! Some of these are looking awesome!

Ember still needs some love though, as attacking through fireblast pretty much leaves her, and teammates static/grounded; Exposed to enemy attacks. 

Fireball charging sounds sweet, but probably won't be used still unless it can actually scale with enemies (if it ignored armor, or did damage proportional to enemy armor/hp)

 

I hope the devs are getting enough sleep and food, with all of these fixes, and updates lol. Damn you guys must be robots, or maybe DE hired the flash? X'D

[DroopingPuppy]

1 minute ago, Ardhanarishvara said:

Question for WoF debaters: Is there a reason you can't just stack more range mods on than you did previously? Overextended in particular seems like it'd achieve pretty much turning the ability into its old range just with a higher channel cost. Of course Stretch will have reduced effectiveness, but...

I am sure that you are not aware that Overextended dramatically reduces ability power.

[Sorise]

Vex Armor should affect all abilities

That Tailwind Augment should be something else and it's affect applied to the skill already.

Prettify should surround atlas.

[xXHobbitXx]

6 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

EMBER:

• Fireball can now be held and charged for additional damage. Upon impact, Fireball will leave behind a Napalm-like flame that damages enemies.
• Fire Blast will now add heat damage to weapons that fire through it.

charged abiltiys are horrible to use, instead of just having to click 1 without thinking or having to make sure its charged, now we have to hold 1 and pay attention to it, taking away from gameplay, may only be second or 2, but when you literally have to pay attention to charging its really annoying, i dont use hydroid for that exact reason, in heated gameplay we need to press a button and forget about it, not press/hold/release, the charge time on hydroid is horrible and im guessing so will this be, and fire blast is really hard to sight through as it stands, that needs to be changed, if i was using ignis and fireblast, would lay down fireblast spin with ignis, wouldnt expect to be able to see anything on screen at all except damage numbers of enemies dying, not exactly riveting gameplay watching flames cover your screen and losing control of whats actually going on around you

[Valthryn]

6 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

(NOTE: This post is a follow-up on a prior Dev Workshop. If you missed out last time, be sure to read up on all the changes here: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/915093-dev-workshop-warframes-revisited/ )

 

Hail Tenno!

Thanks to everybody who read our previous thread, tuned in for the stream, and left their comments on our proposed Warframe ability changes. After having the weekend to observe player responses and read feedback, we’ve been trying out a few further changes, and wanted to update you guys on our progress!

First of all, the Warframe changes are also coming with a HUGE rebalancing of guns (as can be seen here: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/916505-dev-workshop-weapons-mastery-ranks-and-stats/ ). We expect an exciting release week as players try out the changes, rework their builds, and rediscover old favorites. To help this along, we’ve got some special rewards lined up:

• Login within 7 days of the update for an inbox message containing 3 x Forma and a 3 Day Affinity booster!
• Console player will receive the same inbox message, by logging in when they get the build with aforementioned changes.
• AFTER Friday's Devstream, ALL platforms will get BONUS Gift from the Lotus alerts this weekend with Orokin Reactors!

So without further ado, let's get to it! How have we iterated since last Dev Workshop? Find out in alphabetical order (again)!:

 

ASH:

• Reduced energy cost of Bladestorm ticks.
   

ATLAS:

• Petrify is now a single cast instead of a channel ability, instantly Petrifying enemies in front of you regardless of level!
• Rubble now has a singular decay, instead of each piece of rubble having its own set duration. Picking up more rubble delays the decay for a brief time.
• We may rebalance Ore Gaze for this rework, as players now have significantly more ways to Petrify enemies!
   

BANSHEE:

• Although still a singular cast allowing free movement, Resonating Quake will only hit enemies once as it expands outward, dealing a mass of damage at once.
   

CHROMA:

• Can cast other abilities while using Spectral Scream.
• Spectral Scream damage now affected by Vex Armor damage buff.
• Vex Armor aura range increased (currently 18 meters base range).
• Vex Armor can now be recast to preserve accumulated buffs.
   

EMBER:

• Fireball can now be held and charged for additional damage. Upon impact, Fireball will leave behind a Napalm-like flame that damages enemies.
• Fire Blast will now add heat damage to weapons that fire through it.
   

GARA:

• Health gained by Mass Vitrify shown in a UI display.
   

MAG:

• Increased base energy pool (125 for Mag, 175 for Mag Prime).
• Crush animations slightly sped up
• Augment for Polarize reworked - now reads: "Weapons hit by Polarize are jammed for 4 seconds. Robotic enemies hit by Polarize are disabled for 4 seconds."
   

VOLT:

• No changes at this time.
   

ZEPHYR:

• Tail Wind now costs half as much energy when cast in the air.
• Tail Wind does more damage.
• Changed Dive Bomb augment into a Tail Wind augment - now reads: “Each enemy hit increases Tail Wind damage by 25%. Damage resets upon landing.”
• Dive Bomb can now fire on slight angles, as long as you’re looking mostly down.
• (Clarification: holding aim (default RMB) has a greater effect on steering Tornadoes.)

 

As a bonus, two more general changes you'll be happy to hear:

• Focus Passives now apply immediately upon loading into a mission, rather than requiring the brief Operator transition.
• When interacting with nullifiers, power-created avatars (Atlas’ Rumblers, Nekros’ Shadows, etc) will have their health drained, instead of instantly disappearing.

 

Expect these changes to land on PC soon! Thanks everyone!

Ember's WoF nerf still stands? Given that there have been no changes that allow ember to scale with level , it still seems like an unwarranted sledgehammer to the face with regard to her usability. The shrinking range and increasing damage is a good trade-off, and could be used to help ember scale, but is negated by the doubling of channeling energy costs and the addition of a new requirement: consistent reactivation energy costs. As it stands, it's a direct nerf, and does not seem warranted by her performance. If Ember is to remain at her current level of usefulness, which is average, then the channeling energy cost of WoF should be lowered, not raised, and maintained as a static cost, as even the current WoF channeling energy cost would not be reasonably maintainable even at 175% efficiency if it required recasting every 10 seconds to remain useful, in order to combat the constant reactivation that will be required as a result of the increasingly impotent range. If recasting is going to become a regular thing with Ember, then WoF should get the same treatment as Ash's Smokescreen, turning it into a one-handed ability that can be cast while doing virtually anything.