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Ember Changes : Update 22.12.0 Feedback


N4ughtyBanana
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I'll be honest I was a former Ember main before I found Valkyr but I wont lie...this change brings me back to thinking on that old Proverb

 

"The candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long"

Same can be said for Ember now. Look at the facts:

1.After a short time "Burning" time the damage increases by 200% that brings her out of the "anything under 30+" catagory into the higher tiers. Good

2. With the 200% increase in damage comes a 200% increase to energy costs. Not a terrible increase. Most modders at one time through clever manipulation of effenicy and duration, could bring the skill's energy efficiency down to .75/sec so the cost becomes 1.5 energy/sec...which is tolerable.

3. The 1/2 WoF range...I pity new players coming into ember for the first time far more then we Vets. At rank 1 WoF with range mods (stretch, overextended etc) will barely reach beyond 14 meters coupled with the fact its very inefficent at the early stages even with streamlined and fleeting and it becomes a Newbies Worst Nightmare to try and use. The damage buff is rendered null and void with overextended and after 10 seconds you have to be in range to literally reach out and tap a grinner on the shoulder to flame him.

Not to mention....Rookies wouldn't have anything!

Most would be running base line stuff at best...nvm fleeting, primed anything etc..

My summary is this..."World" on Fire needs its range to allow ember players some degree of protection...or have a mechanic like what they gave volt's discharge. WoF doing less damage to enemies farther away from the Fire's Source with damage scaling the closer they are to ember herself. It would allow an Ember player to feel more reward to take the extra risk in getting in close and personal while still allowing a degree of involvment if they need to back off and disengage from a dangerous fight.

It would allow Firequake users to keep their CC builds effective as well.

Id love to hear other peoples opinions to on my suggestion but please DE, give this change a little more thought before you risk turning a Roaring Wildfire, into a Flickering Candle thats about to be snuffed out by the faintest puff of wind...

 

Edited by (PS4)NBChickadee
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I really can't comprehend how DE fails to understand what makes frames work so many years into the game. Reduced range on #4 knockdown means Ember struggles even in sorties now. Nullifiers make it even worse. 

5 years later and we're still at "Ember sucks at high levels"... and can still wipe lower levels. Another change that fixed nothing. Just look for community suggestions if you don't know what to do with her. 

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Firstly I'd like to say I mostly used my Ember with a CC build. Now it is useless thanks to the change on WOF.

If DE wanted to stop player from abusing of such ability, I'd gladly change DMG for CC.

So make [Firequake] to turn the Ability into the old WOF without the DMG component.

  1. Keep the ability as it was (no range reduction, no cost increase)
  2. take out the DMG
  3. switch it for the enemies to get x2 (or any balanced multiplier) when hit by fire damage while under WOF influence
  4. and keep the CC as side effect. 

This way you'll have both thing. You keep happy DE and happy the players, (like me) that used Ember for CC

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WoF literally hasn't changed if you don't want it to.  Just recast every 10 seconds or so, as needed to keep your range up and drain low (remember that re-casting also gives you 5 instant bonus ticks.)  The anti-afk measure that also doubles as a power boost is a good move, imo.  Makes the ability objectively better.  

Firstly I'd like to say I mostly used my Ember with a CC build. Now it is useless thanks to the change on WOF.

If DE wanted to stop player from abusing of such ability, I'd gladly change DMG for CC.

So make [Firequake] to turn the Ability into the old WOF without the DMG component.

Firequake was always bad.  The only reason to use Firequake is if you use a low strength, max range  build with Overextended, in which case you can just use Accelerant for CC instead.  If you aren't going low strength (very niche build in the first place,)  Firequake is useless since WoF's heat procs keep you safe in between Accelerants.  

Edited by RealPandemonium
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These suggestions were originally meant for ember, but now i'm gonna suggest them for ember umbra instead.... Still, i'd really appreciate it if people could read it & comment with their thoughts. 

 

Thanks in advance, if you do read it!~

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Honestly, the biggest problem with the rework is her survivability. I get the argument that it isn't fun to chase after an ember who bullet jumps ahead and kills everything before Anyone sees the enemy. However, as it stands, they took away too much of her survivability. Her WOF is now too short range to use the augment because if you're close enough to knock down your enemy then they should be already dead. This is a further shame because you can still turn it on and bullet jump through any fissure mission without much issue. They simply made it useless in high level content. 

Shooting through the ring of fire to add fire damage is fine but, in higher level content if you stay still long enough to shoot through the flames her armor, health, and shields are low enough to get one shot from that bombard. Especially when you have other options like Volt's shield that A) lasts longer and B) you're invincible behind it. 

Her 2 is her best CC utility but the stun doesn't last long enough for it to be her only decent CC. 

My point is, DE failed to stop her from being a press 4 and bullet jump to win frame in lower content while leaving her squishy enough to not be viable in higher end content. Plus they made her literally unusable in the POE and open world places they plan on bringing in the future. She is now a caster damage frame with no damage, too little CC, and she's FAR too squishy.

Bringing up her survivability with some health/armor and/or shield buffs or even making her a CC frame by building better control into her abilities for higher end content were both viable options. Hell maybe we could make WOF have an "alt fire" kinda like some weapons where you came make it a low damage/high range knockdown with the augment but taking the augment off makes it a low range/high damage ability. As it stands she's too squishy with lackluster abilities that are outclassed in every way by other frames and, at the same time, the stated reason for the nerf was not addressed in a meaningful way. 

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10 hours ago, (PS4)XxDDKillaxX said:

Honestly, the biggest problem with the rework is her survivability. I get the argument that it isn't fun to chase after an ember who bullet jumps ahead and kills everything before Anyone sees the enemy. However, as it stands, they took away too much of her survivability. Her WOF is now too short range to use the augment because if you're close enough to knock down your enemy then they should be already dead. This is a further shame because you can still turn it on and bullet jump through any fissure mission without much issue. They simply made it useless in high level content. 

Shooting through the ring of fire to add fire damage is fine but, in higher level content if you stay still long enough to shoot through the flames her armor, health, and shields are low enough to get one shot from that bombard. Especially when you have other options like Volt's shield that A) lasts longer and B) you're invincible behind it. 

Her 2 is her best CC utility but the stun doesn't last long enough for it to be her only decent CC. 

My point is, DE failed to stop her from being a press 4 and bullet jump to win frame in lower content while leaving her squishy enough to not be viable in higher end content. Plus they made her literally unusable in the POE and open world places they plan on bringing in the future. She is now a caster damage frame with no damage, too little CC, and she's FAR too squishy.

Bringing up her survivability with some health/armor and/or shield buffs or even making her a CC frame by building better control into her abilities for higher end content were both viable options. Hell maybe we could make WOF have an "alt fire" kinda like some weapons where you came make it a low damage/high range knockdown with the augment but taking the augment off makes it a low range/high damage ability. As it stands she's too squishy with lackluster abilities that are outclassed in every way by other frames and, at the same time, the stated reason for the nerf was not addressed in a meaningful way. 

Survivability didn't change; just re-cast your 4 every 10 seconds, assuming you aren't AFK.  If this is the entire premise of your post, you're in trouble.  

Accelerant was always her best CC tool since its introduction, and you can even stunlock everything in its relatively generous range by casting it every 4-5 seconds.  If you can't take cover, you can rely on it, and otherwise can use it to break a hole in the enemy force using its hefty damage bonus.  It's not intended as a passive CC tool; you're supposed to use it on offense and rely on it for pure defense only in emergencies.

There is no need to cast the fire ring out in the open; cast it in a more fortified position or within defensive frame abilities like Snow Globe and such.  Or cast it in between enemies and you and fire through it, but not in it, while staying mobile and using Ember's active-cc tools to keep you safe.

Ember's durability is average, with 300/300/100 hp/shield/armor, and the Prime improves this further to 300/375/125.  Slot Redirection if you don't feel confident, and use movement techniques in concert with her cc tools.  Face-tanking is foolish in any part of the game, but this is especially true in level 50+ content.  If you actually put in the effort, you can thrive with Ember in Sorties without much trouble.  If you prefer a mind-numbingly easy game with little to no interaction involved, there are plenty of alternatives available in Warframe.  Ember doesn't need to be one of them.  

Edited by RealPandemonium
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8 minutes ago, (PS4)KnowLedge said:

I was already running a strength and efficiency build with a energize set. She's even more OP now.....

BWAHAHAHA

Exactly. It's weird that they gave her more kill power, but took away CC for high tier content.

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35 minutes ago, Altre said:

Exactly. It's weird that they gave her more kill power, but took away CC for high tier content.

Ya. See I never really used her as a CC. More of a finishing amount of damage to kill higher ranked enemies faster. Synoid Simulor, Euphona Prime, and Galatine Prime is the general I run with her. All have rivens as well. 

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How'd you manage to not get 1 shot, though? I can slide, roll, jump, and bullet jump all day, except when you catch a stray (not stray if they hit I guess...) shot that puts you down instantly. If they'd implement shield gating, this wouldn't be such an issue. Firequake at least kept this from happening as often.

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2 hours ago, Altre said:

How'd you manage to not get 1 shot, though? I can slide, roll, jump, and bullet jump all day, except when you catch a stray (not stray if they hit I guess...) shot that puts you down instantly. If they'd implement shield gating, this wouldn't be such an issue. Firequake at least kept this from happening as often.

Running Arcane Barrier set on her helmet. It still does happen here and there though especially on solo runs.

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I think she needs a total rework because the current kit just isn't living up to her description of being a good damage dealer.

Was thinking about some rework suggestions which would make her more fun and effective as a casting warframe, which requires a little more thought into how you'd use Ember's abilities but also giving her more options by buffing/tweaking how her lesser used abilities behave.

 

Fireball: Right now I wouldn’t change much other than shortening the charge time to 1 second and using the guaranteed heat procs to interact with Accelerant. Range mods should affect the size of the leftover fire.

  • ·        Reason: Hydroid’s charge mechanics have a much wider area of effect than this ability’s ground fire effect. Ember’s charge mechanic could be tweaked to compensate for the smaller area of effect.

Accelerant: Enemies who suffer a heat status proc while under the effects of Accelerant will spread Accelerant to nearby enemies (14 meters base range without mods). On enemies who are not under the effects of Accelerant, the spreading effect will apply the full heat damage multiplier, duration, and CC effect. Enemies who are already affected by the accelerant will have the duration of their heat damage multiplier refreshed but will NOT be stunned by the spread effect.  Also, Enemies who die while under the effects of Accelerant will spontaneously combust upon death and spread Accelerant to nearby enemies at a reduced distance (7 meters without mods).

  • ·        Reason: Realistically, fire is very hard to contain when a fuel source is present. Why contain it? Being able to spread the effect of increased heat damage and a little extra CC would go a long way for an AOE focused caster like Ember.

Fire Blast: In addition to its current effects, standing inside the ring of fire grants a 75% damage reduction (maximum of 95%). Also range mods need to affect the size of the fire ring on the ground.

  • ·         Reason: One of the biggest obstacles for Ember is that her old playstyle relies completely on being within range and praying to RNGsus hoping that her abilities will reliably CC or kill enemies before the CC wears off and said enemies chew through your squishy frame (assuming they don't outright resist the heat procs for whatever reason). This becomes especially apparent in higher level content where Ember doesn’t do enough damage to make quick work of lower trash mobs which would normally prevent her from being exposed to enemy fire. Also some enemies don’t seem to be CCed reliably by flame procs at all (mostly non-humanoid ones like ospreys). Having at least one damage reducing ability would help with her survivability falling off considerably after a certain level.

World on Fire: Ok here me out… what if instead of having World on Fire follow Ember around the map while bullet jumping with a shrinking radius, what if we made it a stationary AOE ability which increases in damage and size the longer it’s active (like a wildfire)?  Make it like Limbo’s Cataclysm where you can create an instance of World on Fire where you aim. In addition to the new changes, add an aura effect within its effective radius called “Overheat” which adds a percentage of heat damage to the weapons of ember and nearby allies which increases as World on Fire reaches 100%. This damage should be able to stack with shooting through Fire Blast, and with the “Flash Accelerant” augment for an obscene amount of heat damage. Also since the ability is going to become stationary, the range should be increased to something fairly large. Maybe starting at a 15 meter radius which expands to 25 meters at 100%? (Without mods and capped at 50 meters) This way, you can use it to either hold a defensive position while providing crowd control and a damage buff to your team, or to choke out an entire room filled with enemies you don’t feel like getting close to. Also it would practically eliminate the problem of Embers just bullet jumping through levels since you’d have to waste so much energy just to keep recasting World on Fire while waiting for the AOE to expand for every room.

 

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2 hours ago, notHunky said:

World on Fire: Ok here me out… what if instead of having World on Fire follow Ember around the map while bullet jumping with a shrinking radius, what if we made it a stationary AOE ability which increases in damage and size the longer it’s active (like a wildfire)?  Make it like Limbo’s Cataclysm where you can create an instance of World on Fire where you aim. In addition to the new changes, add an aura effect within its effective radius called “Overheat” which adds a percentage of heat damage to the weapons of ember and nearby allies which increases as World on Fire reaches 100%. This damage should be able to stack with shooting through Fire Blast, and with the “Flash Accelerant” augment for an obscene amount of heat damage. Also since the ability is going to become stationary, the range should be increased to something fairly large. Maybe starting at a 15 meter radius which expands to 25 meters at 100%? (Without mods and capped at 50 meters) This way, you can use it to either hold a defensive position while providing crowd control and a damage buff to your team, or to choke out an entire room filled with enemies you don’t feel like getting close to. Also it would practically eliminate the problem of Embers just bullet jumping through levels since you’d have to waste so much energy just to keep recasting World on Fire while waiting for the AOE to expand for every room.

 

 

 

I like the idea of it, I just don't know how redundant this and her 3 would be.

@KnowLedge- I'll run her again with Barrier and Aegis, but I feel like it won't be enough because the proc chance is so low. She needs damage mitigation, 1 solid CC ability, or damage output/enemy weakening features. If you slip up on maintaining whichever ability it's tied to, you're done. Seems fair.

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17 hours ago, Altre said:

I like the idea of it, I just don't know how redundant this and her 3 would be.

@KnowLedge- I'll run her again with Barrier and Aegis, but I feel like it won't be enough because the proc chance is so low. She needs damage mitigation, 1 solid CC ability, or damage output/enemy weakening features. If you slip up on maintaining whichever ability it's tied to, you're done. Seems fair.

The idea was her 3 could function as both damage multiplier and a makeshift panic room to temporarily increase survivability (it doesn't last anywhere near as long as Mesa's 3 and is stationary), while her 4 would be able to lock down an entire room with CC (once the fire spreads) and heat damage buffs which benefit from allied gunfire and stack with her other abilities. Although I wouldn't mind either if they just dropped the damage buff on her 3 to give her the damage reduction instead, because Ember really needs an ability for increased survivability. 

 

The redundancy/stacking of damage buffs was originally on purpose to make her more viable as a heavy damage dealer but now I'm thinking she should be more about spreading CC and making enemies vulnerable to increased damage, because only having abilities which deal straight damage becomes useless at higher levels. I was also kind of aiming to go in a similar direction as Saryn who is basically just a straight upgrade to ember in every way. Saryn creates a huge damage boost for the team and her abilities spread to nearby enemies, but her abilities don't give buffs to allies and aren't intentionally focused on CC (besides her Molt). Maybe Ember could be more focused on a support role as a force multiplier about crowd control and damage buffs to allies? It would also be nice to have fire and damage multipliers spread between enemies via accelerant.

Edited by notHunky
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6 hours ago, notHunky said:

--.

I'm certainly in agreeance on her needing CC and something to increase survivability. It just feels odd thinking about her having two stationary fire abilities, even if they offer different abilities. It's a thematic redundancy in my head (why does one stationary thing of fire work differently than another). I'd like her 3 to have a different execution if 4 is stationary. That's just me, though! Not a bad idea, it just doesn't work in my head. It may work better in the minds of the devs. 😃

Hopefully the damage rework will make fire a more viable damage type. I understand that she's supposed to be like a mage, but her magic doesn't scale well. Pyromancers in pnp games can put the hurt down at higher levels, too.

Edited by Altre
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I'm just gonna drop this here and divert from WoF for a little.

 

Fireball in general: It doesn't really have too much use considering the rest of her kit, though it can be fun to lob fireballs across a wide tile. Its main use I find is forcing a heat proc, mainly when you're in the middle of a reload and an enemy is about to shoot you.  Its definitely helped me out when an enemy has been out of WoFs range, or if its just not worth an accelerant cast (especially if one is already acceleranted, in which case, they're going to be dead in <2 sec if a level 100 or less).  Beyond that though, its not particularly cool or exciting.  The changes helped it out some, but its still not a real meaningful part of the kit or gameplay.

The good
The napalm is a good addition - it covers an area as large as fireblast with the right amount of strength, and can lockdown an area for a little.  Its napalm size scales with power strength, which as someone that runs power strength for some pretty major multipliers, is a convenience I hope was intentional.  The napalm doesn't really do meaningful damage even to unarmored enemies, but ok, its there for the constant CC procs.

The bad
(The charge mechanic)
This mechanic had some kind of potential, but it was just thrown in and forgotten about in every update since it debuted.  The charge time is wholly inefficient.  For the amount of time you spend charging, whether you have accelerant cast speed buff (or nat talent for some reason), you lose actual efficiency in killing or cc on the battlefield because you could cast several fireballs in that time, for more damage, more area coverage, though with slightly more cost.  If the charge time was the same time to just cast two fireballs, thus equalling the 2x damage, 2x cost, 2x area, sure, it'd be worthwhile, but the charge time is just poor.  It doesn't make sense that it takes 4-6x longer to charge than to just rapid cast repeatedly, to get 2x the effect.

Basic Changes
Either increase the charge speed dramatically, or add some nonlinear scaling so that this feature that was just coded in has value in gameplay.

Changes to help Ember out more
Add a blast proc/knockdown to any targets it affects that are currently burning.
-or-
If it hits a burning target, consume the heat proc and deal 25% of the remaining heat damage immediately (scale with power strength, or not).  This would make her much scarier at all levels, require a bit of priming on targets, and make fireball so much more desirable to use and work with wof/accel/heat status on weps.  This would help her scale indefinitely also, as you'll always have heat procs from melee and weapons if you're playing Ember and trying to accomplish anything beyond afkfarm.


...I mean, you wouldn't hear me complaining if it did both, but, one or the other could really help her out a lot. A lot.  Don't underestimate the first part, considering everything around Ember should be suffering heat procs constantly as it is from weps+wof.

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On 3/7/2018 at 1:21 PM, Altre said:

Ah, yes. Wanting better CC means everyone wants to "facetank".

I've played this game and read the forums enough over the years to know how to read between the lines.  There are a ton of people who are really bad at the game who have been lobbying to have it dumbed-down for them for years, and they've widely succeeded.  Rhino, Loki, Octavia, Mesa, Nova, Frost, and other silly frames are available for those people to abuse.  One of the reasons I like Ember is that even though she has some cheesy stuff, I need to pay attention and put in some effort to use her in high level content, which makes me at least feel like I'm earning my win, vs having it handed to me at the Arsenal screen before I even click the mission node.  

Edited by RealPandemonium
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1 hour ago, Terrornaut said:

I'm just gonna drop this here and divert from WoF for a little.

 

Fireball in general: It doesn't really have too much use considering the rest of her kit, though it can be fun to lob fireballs across a wide tile. Its main use I find is forcing a heat proc, mainly when you're in the middle of a reload and an enemy is about to shoot you.  Its definitely helped me out when an enemy has been out of WoFs range, or if its just not worth an accelerant cast (especially if one is already acceleranted, in which case, they're going to be dead in <2 sec if a level 100 or less).  Beyond that though, its not particularly cool or exciting.  The changes helped it out some, but its still not a real meaningful part of the kit or gameplay.

The good
The napalm is a good addition - it covers an area as large as fireblast with the right amount of strength, and can lockdown an area for a little.  Its napalm size scales with power strength, which as someone that runs power strength for some pretty major multipliers, is a convenience I hope was intentional.  The napalm doesn't really do meaningful damage even to unarmored enemies, but ok, its there for the constant CC procs.

The bad
(The charge mechanic)
This mechanic had some kind of potential, but it was just thrown in and forgotten about in every update since it debuted.  The charge time is wholly inefficient.  For the amount of time you spend charging, whether you have accelerant cast speed buff (or nat talent for some reason), you lose actual efficiency in killing or cc on the battlefield because you could cast several fireballs in that time, for more damage, more area coverage, though with slightly more cost.  If the charge time was the same time to just cast two fireballs, thus equalling the 2x damage, 2x cost, 2x area, sure, it'd be worthwhile, but the charge time is just poor.  It doesn't make sense that it takes 4-6x longer to charge than to just rapid cast repeatedly, to get 2x the effect.

Basic Changes
Either increase the charge speed dramatically, or add some nonlinear scaling so that this feature that was just coded in has value in gameplay.

Changes to help Ember out more
Add a blast proc/knockdown to any targets it affects that are currently burning.
-or-
If it hits a burning target, consume the heat proc and deal 25% of the remaining heat damage immediately (scale with power strength, or not).  This would make her much scarier at all levels, require a bit of priming on targets, and make fireball so much more desirable to use and work with wof/accel/heat status on weps.  This would help her scale indefinitely also, as you'll always have heat procs from melee and weapons if you're playing Ember and trying to accomplish anything beyond afkfarm.


...I mean, you wouldn't hear me complaining if it did both, but, one or the other could really help her out a lot. A lot.  Don't underestimate the first part, considering everything around Ember should be suffering heat procs constantly as it is from weps+wof.

I like the proc consumption idea, and hold the same sentiments for her charged one scaling up steeply. I even made a thread about it, with some other, less then balanced (maybe) but fun (definitely) ideas.

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