The rebalance patch was more of a nerf for Zephyr than a buff.

[Mehbah]

She got more negative changes than positive ones. Yep, another thread because I'm not going through several pages worth of inane S#&$ like "I will ignore all your arguments and say that you are wrong because my boyfriend and I say she's better now :^)".
1: Tail wind
You made it go faster and farther. This is helpful - in the plains. It's a disaster anywhere else. Even before this change, tail wind would frequently carry you past the boundaries of the stage and teleport you back (and in the process turn off your 75 energy turbulence). Now it does that even more often. It also causes the skill to essentially break if you stack duration (primed continuity and constitution), as you go flying ridiculously far. Again, good in the plains, a disaster anywhere else. You also changed how the momentum works somehow, because it clearly doesn't work the same way. Now, when you touch the ground during the end or for a long time after the flight, you come to a complete stop and lose all momentum. This makes it even more clumsy as you can't aim it diagonally downwards to glide through doors or such. The momentum deletion happens even if you slide as you touch the ground.
If you don't touch the ground, however, you keep all that insane new momentum. That means you go very, very far even after the actual flying ends. This only serves to make it incredibly unwieldy. Even with Zephyr's increased air control, it takes several seconds of holding backwards to make her come to come to a stop (based on the primed continuity and constitution build). What that means is that once you use tail wind, you're either aiming it into the ground to completely lose all momentum and be slowed down, or you're not stopping until you hit a wall. Tail wind is now practically useless with a duration build outside the plains. And Zephyr has no reason not to use high duration, as the one and only useful skill she has is turbulence, which is a 75 energy 20 second duration skill.
To give an idea of how bad the new tail wind is, let me use the simulacrum as an example. If you stand on the lowest point of the floor and use tail wind straight upwards, you will hit the boundary and get teleported down (using the two mods I mentioned for 183% duration). Keep in mind that the simulacrum has a higher ceiling than most other rooms. If you stand on the starting platform and use it at a slight upwards angle, you'll shoot past the end of the floor and go flying into the boundary. The only way to get back to ground at that point is to use another tail wind, as you have no way to get stop all that ridiculous speed even with your double jump.
This one is subjective, but it used to launch you straight up if used on the ground. It was useful as an emergency eject.
The dive bomb part of it is practically useless, just like before. All it's good for is ragdolling enemies close to you in a clumsy manner. It will never do good damage, even if you make a garbage build with full power strength.
The new charge ability is completely and utterly useless. You can charge for an eternity to gain the privilege of being completely an immobile target in the air. Titania gets true flight yet the actual bird frame doesn't even get to hover around. I guess the only bird-like thing Zephyr gets is pretending to be a lazy clay pigeon.
That tail wind now costs less to cast in the air is the only good change.
Also, I'm almost certain that tail wind did not use to cancel reloads, but it does now.

One way to solve how bad the skill is now would be to mostly revert it to how it worked, keeping the energy cost discount, and making the charged tail wind give her true or semi-true flight. If you could just hover in place just like an archwing can, it would still give the one single person that likes the hover (I'm sure there's someone out there) the ability to do the same thing. That would at least justify the ridiculous charge time, fit her bird theme and also let her fly around the big plains without completely crippling the skill outside them.

2: Airburst
This was actually a good addition. Zephyr's ability to deal damage with skills might as well not exist, meaning she has to rely on guns if not using just melee (and melee-hitting enemies from the air, as her entire concept is about, is not entirely easy). In the past she was completely helpless when her gun was out of ammo, but since airburst doesn't interrupt reloads, she can use this to ragdoll nearby enemies. It's not without flaws though. It's costly, at 50 base energy for a fairly small AoE ragdoll. The projectile is really slow, and could stand to be faster. Winds are supposed to be fast, after all. And last, it's very hard to see. With bright colors it's barely visible. With black energy, as I use to not have my screen covered in whirling colors 99% of the time thanks to turbulence, it's almost invisible.

3. Turbulence
Zephyr's only good skill and the reason she isn't the worst frame in the game (maybe). It's the only thing protecting her and her 15 base armor (lowest in the game, shared with only non-primes-with-prime-versions and the healer Trinity Prime) from not dying instantly. Also, thanks to the augment, the thing that allows her to go fast when her lower gravity would prevent her from doing the fancy flips that other frames do in enclosed quarters and getting stuck on the tiny, tiny ledge that was put above many doors specifically as a middle finger to Zephyr. This skill is why you always put duration on Zephyr; it's a 75 energy, 20 second skill that both serves as her only means of not dying to everything the instant it sees her, and keeping up with the other frames when the level design does everything it can to cause problems for her and her low gravity. In other words, you will have it active essentially all the time. It was thankfully mostly untouched, but the changes it did receive were nerfs. it has a new cast animation, which is noticeably longer than the previous one, and you can no longer cast it during tail wind to skip the cast animation.

4. Tornado
When I heard they they were changing the tornadoes to not throw enemies around and instead hold them, I assumed they would hold enemies in the centre of them or something like that. Instead it's just the same as before, except perhaps a bit less likely to throw enemies around. They still do throw them around, as one can easily see in the simulacrum. They still cause chaos, and make headshots nothing but an unachievable dream. I also heard that they would now transfer damage to any enemies inside them, which would be a way to make up for the chaos and how they prevent headshots. I don't know exactly how the mechanics there work, but I can say that shooting the tornado doesn't transfer even a tenth of the damage that even a body shot would do. So, to summarize, tornados are terrible for DPS, very unreliable crowd control, and will still annoy your team mates.

The supposed buffs did more to ruin the few good points Zephyr had than make her stronger. Tail wind was clearly not tested outside of the plains and is horribly unwieldy if you put duration on her. And before some clown tells us to "just don't put duration on her", let me shoot that nonsense down by reminding you that duration is the only thing she has and is an absolute necessity because of how costly turbulence would be to keep up without it. Strength is completely and utterly useless on Zephyr. She has some use for range, but it won't solve the upkeep cost. Streamline is a must but she can't use fleeting expertise for obvious reasons. Turbulence didn't receive any changes except for a longer cast time, so it's a straight nerf. Airburst helps her not be a sitting duck when reloading, but it has little to no use outside of that. Tornadoes are still pure chaos with no use beyond very poor crowd control and its augment does nothing but trade the crowd control for bottom tier DPS.

[BiancaRoughfin]

33 minutes ago, Mehbah said:

1: Tail wind
You made it go faster and farther. This is helpful - in the plains. It's a disaster anywhere else. Even before this change, tail wind would frequently carry you past the boundaries of the stage and teleport you back (and in the process turn off your 75 energy turbulence). 

I main Zephyr since update 12 when she came out, this has never happened to me not even when casting Tailwind accidentally against a wall on any tileset i have played.

So far only real issue im having with her Tailwind is when charging to Hover since it has no minimal maneuverability which makes you a sitting duck if you dont have Turbulence active and Rolling is glitching out causing your Warframe to be completely locked and unable to even shoot or cast for the remaining duration of the hover.

38 minutes ago, Mehbah said:

2: Airburst
This was actually a good addition. Zephyr's ability to deal damage with skills might as well not exist, meaning she has to rely on guns if not using just melee (and melee-hitting enemies from the air, as her entire concept is about, is not entirely easy). In the past she was completely helpless when her gun was out of ammo, but since airburst doesn't interrupt reloads, she can use this to ragdoll nearby enemies. It's not without flaws though. It's costly, at 50 base energy for a fairly small AoE ragdoll. The projectile is really slow, and could stand to be faster. Winds are supposed to be fast, after all. And last, it's very hard to see. With bright colors it's barely visible. With black energy, as I use to not have my screen covered in whirling colors 99% of the time thanks to turbulence, it's almost invisible.

I never did play Zephyr for damage, always relying on my Weapons to deal the damage for her but still being great at it. I have been enjoying this skill quite alot and casting it rather often which is something i dont usually do. i have been using it for pushing enemies away from defense targets and allies, some times just to push them out of their way when running towards me. Yes it is rather slow, i agree it should be made faster. As i mentioned in another topic, it should have the base speed doubled and have its speed be affected by power strength and Jet Stream augment.

42 minutes ago, Mehbah said:

3. Turbulence
Zephyr's only good skill and the reason she isn't the worst frame in the game (maybe). It's the only thing protecting her and her 15 base armor (lowest in the game, shared with only non-primes-with-prime-versions and the healer Trinity Prime) from not dying instantly. Also, thanks to the augment, the thing that allows her to go fast when her lower gravity would prevent her from doing the fancy flips that other frames do in enclosed quarters and getting stuck on the tiny, tiny ledge that was put above many doors specifically as a middle finger to Zephyr. This skill is why you always put duration on Zephyr; it's a 75 energy, 20 second skill that both serves as her only means of not dying to everything the instant it sees her, and keeping up with the other frames when the level design does everything it can to cause problems for her and her low gravity. In other words, you will have it active essentially all the time. It was thankfully mostly untouched, but the changes it did receive were nerfs. it has a new cast animation, which is noticeably longer than the previous one, and you can no longer cast it during tail wind to skip the cast animation.

I never had issues with Turbulence's animation lock, not even now since i often cast it mid-air and holding the aim button to glide or do a quick slide and cast so i can gain some distance from enemies or move closer to my target and keeping some momentum. i dont remember any time being downed wile casting Turbulence and mine lasts 46 seconds since i made a duration focused build.

45 minutes ago, Mehbah said:

4. Tornado
When I heard they they were changing the tornadoes to not throw enemies around and instead hold them, I assumed they would hold enemies in the centre of them or something like that. Instead it's just the same as before, except perhaps a bit less likely to throw enemies around. They still do throw them around, as one can easily see in the simulacrum. They still cause chaos, and make headshots nothing but an unachievable dream. I also heard that they would now transfer damage to any enemies inside them, which would be a way to make up for the chaos and how they prevent headshots. I don't know exactly how the mechanics there work, but I can say that shooting the tornado doesn't transfer even a tenth of the damage that even a body shot would do. So, to summarize, tornados are terrible for DPS, very unreliable crowd control, and will still annoy your team mates.

I have been watching Turbulence working since the update came and its not throwing enemies nearly as close to what it used to. Enemies take very long to reach the top of the Tornado and even so mostly just drop next to it to get caught again. There is no loot spitting as some people complain about. As i said above , i never did play Zephyr for damage so i really dont bother about the amount of damage being transfered to enemies when the Tornados are shot as they are still very vulnerable to any attack you send directly at them which most likely will kill them first.