Problems with the Zephyr rework

[Yeet]

I've got some complaints on the zephyr rework, or what me and a few other zeph mains affectionately call a nerf. First off, I have lots of time with the frame and have played the new rework extensively, both in missions and in the simulacrum so I feel I'm qualified to at least speak on the issue. I've spent 4 years pretending she's good so here's my vent.

TAILWIND- FLY    the changes to the speed and range of tailwind have made it so I find myself hitting doors and walls far more often than before, and since I run a range and duration build for her 3 the tailwind issue is even worse, it used to be a power I could use to traverse an open area, now it runs me into walls and doorways and keeps me there for 3-4 seconds while the momentum slows down. It overall decreases my speed than increases it, the only use I can find for it is traversing europa interception missions, and using it in plains. (it's useful there but its only one part of the game). The issue makes it useful only in wide open areas, excluding it from use in probably 70-80% of the game, an issue other powers don't have. I understand you can mod it to make it less obnoxious, but when I want to run a range and duration build for her 3 I don't want to change my build just so that one of her more useless powers becomes less of a hindrance, I'll just skip the power if that's the choice at hand. 

TAILWIND - HOVER   Zephyr has always been a frame with a theme of mobility and flight, so why would I use a power that keeps me in the air for an extended period of time that removes my ability to move, when bullet jump and patagium (a mod that extends aim glide time) exists? the movement restriction goes against zephyr's theme, and hovering in the air is something every frame can do with aim glide. In a game centered on mobility and movement, the charge up for hover is also out of place as it 1. keeps you on the ground unable to move, and 2, keeps you in the air unable to move. I'm noticing a theme of zephyr's powers doing things that every frame can do, but somehow worse. tail wind is an obnoxiously fast bullet jump, this hover mechanic is a restrictive aim glide, and divebomb is a worse slam attack. also, since most missions are in indoor cramped areas, what reason is there for an ability like this taking up a power? it seems wasteful to have a whole power slot taken up by a set of powers you can only use outdoors, to be ignored if you're indoors. again, I understand you can mod these powers to be less extreme for indoor usage, but at that point 1. its counter intuitive to mod a power to make it less effective while hurting other powers, and 2. why not just bullet jump and aim glide if you need short range jumps and hovers rather than long range ones? 

 

AIRBURST - This power is mostly okay, but a big issue I see is that, like her other powers, its a more powerful version of something we already have, namely slam attacks, I do understand that its much better than most slam attacks, but when you can bring a jat kittag into the game and have it do the exact same thing I have to question the usefulness of the power. I know you can shoot it, but it's so painfully slow to fire (and has a ridiculous cast animation) and has such awful damage that you have to wonder, why even use it? The only reason it can look decent is because the other powers she has have set the bar so low, and that it replaced an even worse power, divebomb. I could see this power being a good 1 but as a 2 it just doesn't cut it imo, its fun CC but it doesn't cut it for me. I welcome change but I was hoping for something other than an aim fire slow projectile. just bring a sonicor instead.

 

TURBULENCE -  This power remains her best power, the new animation is a bit wonky but gameplay wise it's fine. the main issue I have is since I run range and duration on her 3 to increase the protection range and duration, it makes my tailwind have a speed of 54 (m/s?) which is absurdly high and completely impractical compared to what it used to be like for me, and it brings the damage down on her 2 to 200. Her 3 itself is still fine but how I mod it it makes some other powers obsolete. some people mod for strength for jet stream, but I cant speak to how well that works with her 1, if anyone even decides to use her 1 after this. 

 

TORNADO - Hitting tornadoes with airburst makes tornadoes bigger (but doesn't seem to affect their range) which just makes them even more of a screenshaking eyesore for my team. I like the concept of shooting the tornadoes to damage enemies inside, but the tornadoes still don't hold enemies well enough for that to be practical, and powers like magnetize (I think that's it) and vortex do this so much better and can actually reliably hold enemies. Add that to the fact that tornadoes are her 4 and are still wildly inconsistent, and you have a very mediocre power that does more harm to the sanity of your team that that to the health your enemies.

 

All in all, Zephyr remains a frame who's powers and abilities are things that every other frame has access to with things they can equip. if you want the mobility of tail wind, you bullet jump. if you want to hover, you use aim glide and patagium. if you want the knockdown abilities of her new 2, you use a jat kittag or sonicor. if you want to throw the missions and annoy your teammates, you use limbo instead of tornades. the only ability that every frame doesn't have that zeph has is her 3, and since DE are removing endgame content just block with a sword and shield and you wont die. turb doesn't even block all damage anyway.

 

Again, I've spent 4 years pretending she's good, and if DE wants any hope of her deluxe or prime selling they'll fix this. I'd offer alternatives for her powers but I've never been good at that kind of thing, and would probably get roasted by the community on my ideas. they'd probably deserve to get roasted anyway. all I know is that in it's current state something needs to change or she'll be a dead frame completely, and I fear there aren't enough zephyr players to make enough of an outcry to get anything changed like they did for oberon. Brozime, do what you do best pls.

Edited February 10, 2018 by Yeet

[Lord_Yawgmoth]

i dont think her 2 was ever meant for dmg or else they would make all projectiles curve into the tornado when aimed at it

it s a simple long range aoe cc and i dont think it needs dmg unless it scales with weapon mods like atlas 1-ability

i agree about her 1 though slamming into a door or wall and being stuck there for 2+ seconds is rly annoying and basically makes this into a do not cast while indoor button

her 3 is fine i thinkthe projectile flightspeed is rly nice for certain weapons like arca plasmor

her 4, well honestly i prefer a single placeable tornado and that the ability can be recast with a limit of 4 tornados at a time and those tornados have greater effect range for dragging enemies in but dont move around and the animation is just hovering around a small area

[Stormandreas]

Honestly... it sounds like you're complaining for the sake of complaining.

Tailwind now works BETTER than a Bullet Jump, making it more useful on open maps rather than a redundant ability that Bullet Jump replaces. It's beautiful on the Plains and Interception maps. Her Hover is the MOST REQUESTED FEATURE that she should have. It's well within her caricature being a WIND based warframe dominating the air. Being able to hover should be an Innate feature, and does NOT restrict mobility, just melee, or tailwind out of it... or just don't use it, it's an optional feature.

Turbulence yes, is still a good power, and better for closer ranged tiles, so now she has options to use. You can still by all means mod JUST for turbulence, but it's by FAR from her only build now. Fyi, almost everyone mods for Strength with Jetstream, as it's the most effective way to mod for it.

If you mod for Strength, the Tornadoes do a considerable amount of damage now, not only that, YOU CAN TURN OFF SCREENSHAKE, so I wish people would stop complaining about it. The option to turn Screenshake is there, just use it.

Zephyr now actually has additional uses in her powers. No, not every frame can do what she does. No has the airbursting speed she has with little ease (tailwind, and NO BULLET JUMPING IS NOT FASTER). Aimgliding is not hovering. It forces you into a zoom, which if you're closeish to an enemy, is VERY frustrating.
The Jat Kittag does not have the range of Airburst, and you complained a little about ragdolling enemys making them hard to hit yet you mention the Sonicor #Thinking
Turbulence is one of the ONLY abilities Zephyr has that is similar to other Frames. Rhino Iron Skin, Nezha Warding Halo, Mesa Shatter Shield, Chroma Elemental Ward (Ice), all do similar things in different ways. Some block damage, some reflect it, Zephyrs diverts it, making it extremely similar.

Lastly... why are you crying to a Youtuber to make complaints and get things changed?

[Yeet]

6 minutes ago, Stormandreas said:

Lastly... why are you crying to a Youtuber to make complaints and get things changed?

You remember the oberon situation right? where he couldn't kill a level 1 enemy with it, and made a huge rant about it, the clip was posted everywhere? then it got changed within a day if I remember. all im saying is his rants tend to get people going ^^

About the rest of your argument, these are just things I've noticed in my time playing with her. we'll all have different opinoins ^^

Edited February 10, 2018 by Yeet

[HC217]

her 1 would probably work better if you could recast to divebomb to kill your momentum, plus if it accounted for momentum as well as height for damage, it'd probably be better than slam attack. all in all it seems they built it for open spaces and didn't tweak it for cramped tiles. tweaks and QoL, that's all she needs

[Yeet]

1 minute ago, HC217 said:

her 1 would probably work better if you could recast to divebomb to kill your momentum, plus if it accounted for momentum as well as height for damage, it'd probably be better than slam attack. all in all it seems they built it for open spaces and didn't tweak it for cramped tiles. tweaks and QoL, that's all she needs

I mean I hope they change it for the better like they did with oberon. I think the idea behind the rework is ok but they do need tweaking, I good hover mode would be nice, as well as her 2 being more useful and a new 4 altogether. I dont expect much with zeph anymore but at least that would be nice

[HC217]

1 minute ago, Yeet said:

I mean I hope they change it for the better like they did with oberon. I think the idea behind the rework is ok but they do need tweaking, I good hover mode would be nice, as well as her 2 being more useful and a new 4 altogether. I dont expect much with zeph anymore but at least that would be nice

think her 4's fine personally, hover mode would be better with an option to dash and keep hover, like halve the range/speed while in hover. again, tweaks and such are all her kit needs. maybe they just need to make her 4 make 1 giant tornado and her 2 modifies it differently. either way, tornado concept itself is fine, just needs better execution

[Versa]

43 minutes ago, Stormandreas said:

Honestly... it sounds like you're complaining for the sake of complaining.

Tailwind now works BETTER than a Bullet Jump, making it more useful on open maps rather than a redundant ability that Bullet Jump replaces. It's beautiful on the Plains and Interception maps. Her Hover is the MOST REQUESTED FEATURE that she should have. It's well within her caricature being a WIND based warframe dominating the air. Being able to hover should be an Innate feature, and does NOT restrict mobility, just melee, or tailwind out of it... or just don't use it, it's an optional feature.

Tailwind works better than bullet jump only when you build for extreme duration, she only has only has one kind of build now, full duration. At the same time, the new tailwind is also going to pin you to walls in most of the game far more than it used to as you could cancel the animation with divebomb before. Also, do people still not understand that tailwind and bulletjump could be used in tandem with how their different physics and animations interacted? It used to allow using that vertical takeoff the air dash and bullet jump all for different purposes and motions, now the charged vertical is effectively more a negative than anything, and the new tailwind has virtually zero effect at lower durations like 130%, where before the distance was at least workable.

As for the hover, this is COMPLETELY wrong, the new hover feature was already possible with old tailwind and using aimglide, and in that period, you had actual CONTROL over your motion in the air, the new charge is entirely unnecessary and the locking hover at the top actually slows you down in all ways. What happened here was that you lost all actual choice of how you control the character in the air. I have almost NEVER needed to just hover in place, instead i needed a quick vertical acceleration that moved me up to the higher location while still allowing me to choose if i want to stay up with aimglide or sliding to get some horizontal motion. Now i have a slow charge to go up and im jarringly stopped every time instead of having the option to keep moving off of momentum and aimglide. Noone but people who saw her kit and didnt even think about how to mix it with parkour 2.0 would even have thought that the hover was an even slightly good idea.

Edited February 10, 2018 by Kurayami_No_Yenshi