New Abilities For Frost

[Jamescell]

These are NEW abilities for Frost, not just opinionated takes on how much freezing and damage he should do. When making frames we need to be open the the idea of new abilities, it is not always the effectiveness of an ability that makes a frame sub-par but instead the ability itself. This post is incrementally undergoing revision. I'm really pushing this post because it is one of the few I truly believe in. The DEV's have said that they want all frames on Nova and Vauban's level, here's is a way to hopefully do that with frost. I wouldn't like to call this a rework because when people hear rework they think it means taking their frame into a radically different direction, and forcing the player to re-familiarize themselves with the frame afterwards. This is not a rework in that sense, I am to add cohesion to the Frost Warframe, turning his useless unused abilities into something more. Frost should be one of the next down the line of Warframe improvements, especially because there is a prime version, and who wants a mediocre prime?

ABILITY 1 UPGRADE, CRYO SHOT: Frost imbues his ammunition with a sub-zero freezing agent, and for the duration of the ability all bullets shot will freeze enemies in a transparent coating of ice (no not the stupid white out globs they currently turn into). When an enemy is unfrozen or killed while frozen, the freezing agent around the enemy will explode, doing no damage but adding an ice damage slow effect, much like ice damage mods for weapons. The ice effect would also slightly lower firing rate unlike the rifle ice damage. This explosion would have a large radius of effect emphasis on large radius. The casting duration would be long for a first ability, around sixteen seconds without mods, but the duration of the freeze would be low, around seven seconds each, and the freeze timer would not reset if an enemy is shot while already frozen.

REASON: This is the start to upgrading frost out of the 2 skill frame category he is currently in. A much more useful, unique and expressive ability for a well rounded Frost. Lets face it, his first ability is really just a single target long duration stun, which is only useful if you are playing a mission way out of your league and come across a heavy unit. This ability has the same premise more or less as his current first, but allows for more versatile use.

ABILITY 2 REDO, GLACIAL FLARE: Frost channels a swirling wind of ice looking energy around himself for three seconds while drawing back one arm, then dissipates the surrounding energy channel by slamming a fist into the ground, sending a blast of ice 360 degrees around where his fist hits. Frozen shards would do a small amount of ice damage and hurl enemies far away from the casting zone, pinning them on contact with any surface, much like Excalibur's radial javelin, but this would affect all enemies, dead or alive, unlike radial javelin. The pin would have a medium duration, when maxed without mods around 8 seconds, but the impact of the blast would have high velocity, sending enemies flying. The ability would only be usable when no enemies from previous casts are pinned, preventing crowd control spamming. Because of the pin timer, it wouldn't cost much energy.

REASON: Also, the cool-down timer acts as a balance between it and Snow Globe, the higher Frost's ability duration, the longer Snow Globe lasts, but the longer this abilities cool-down lasts. This would allow Frost to have a hybrid of a utility/ crowd-control ability, working in perfect unison with his snow globe.

ABILITY 3 TWEAK, SNOW GLOBE: Snow globe would also reduce outgoing damage by around 5%. Tenno should also be able to shoot into the Snow Globe, as the can shoot out of it, with a reduction of five percent damage dealt. This prevents idiot frosts from creating invulnerable enemies. I do not want to change snow globe much because I think it is already on Vauban-Nova level.

Now discuss these abilities, likes are appreciated.

Edited August 15, 2013 by Jamescell

[DeerPark]

This is an updated version of my last post, the second ability has changed, the first has a new side effect, and I have added a re-balance for Snow Globe.

The DEV's have said that they want all frames on Nova and Vauban's level, here's is a way to hopefully do that with frost. I wouldn't like to call this a rework because when people hear rework they think it means taking their frame into a radically different direction, and forcing the player to re-familiarize themselves with the frame afterwards. This is not a rework in that sense, I am to add cohesion to the Frost Warframe. Frost should be one of the next down the line of Warframe improvements, especially because there is a prime version, and who wants a mediocre prime?

Ability 1 Upgrade, Cryo Shot: Frost imbues his ammunition with a sub-zero freezing agent, and for the duration of the ability all bullets shot will freeze enemies in a transparent coating of ice. If an enemy is killed while frozen, the frozen enemy will explode, dealing no damage but instead freezing other enemies or resetting the freeze timer of already frozen enemies. Ammunition when active with this ability does 100% freeze damage. Shooting bullets at a Cryo-Pod while Cryo Shot is active cover the pod in a layer of ice, increasing the regeneration rate of the pod while the ability is active. This is the start to upgrading frost out of the 2 skill frame category he is currently in. A much more useful, unique and expressive ability for a well rounded Frost. Lets face it, his first ability is really just a single target long duration stun, which is only useful if you are playing a mission way out of your league and come across a heavy unit.

Ability 2 Redo, Glacial Flare: Frost channels a swirling wind of ice looking energy around himself for three seconds while drawing back one arm, then dissipates the surrounding energy channel by slamming a fist into the ground, sending a blast of ice 360 degrees around where his fist hits. Frozen shards would do a small amount of ice damage and hurl enemies far away from the casting zone, pinning them on contact with any surface, much like Excalibur's radial javelin, but this would affect all enemies, dead or alive, unlike radial javelin. The pin would have a medium duration, when maxed without mods around 8 seconds, but the impact of the blast would have high velocity, sending enemies flying. The ability would only be usable when no enemies from previous casts are pinned, preventing crowd control spamming. Because of the pin timer, it wouldn't cost much energy. Also, the cool-down timer acts as a balance between it and Snow Globe, the higher Frost's ability duration, the longer Snow Globe lasts, but the longer this abilities cool-down lasts. This would allow Frost to have a hybrid of a utility/ crowd-control ability, working in perfect unison with his snow globe.

Ability 3 Re-balance, Snow Globe: Snow Globe does not totally block all incoming damage, but instead greatly reduces it. This prevents Snow Globe from keeping players alive no matter what. If the player is severely outranked and outnumbered dying is a possibility now. Another re-balance add-on that could be viable is a outgoing damage de-buff. All damage from projectiles originating from inside the Snow Globe would be reduced by a small amount, maybe around five percent? Tenno should also be able to shoot into the Snow Globe, as the can shoot out of it.

Make snow globe reduce 80% of incoming projectiles to 25% of their original damage and make the other 20% of incoming projectiles be completely stopped.

[LordMidnightX]

cryo shoot sounds way overpowered

[legionprobatio]

Yeah I agree cryo shot is too good

[Jamescell]

Didn't specify the duration, but the DEV's goal like I said is to get all frames up to Nova tier. And how is this any more over powered than Bastille? It's not even area effect.. asides from the chain reaction explosions.

Edited August 11, 2013 by Jamescell

[Partizanfan]

I like the idea alot i feel this would deffinatly help bring frost up to par. I think Cryo shot should be slightly weaker but overall this is an amazing idea! Dev's should deffinatly add it in my oppioin. ( sorry for spelling errors)

[Jamescell]

I support the premise of Cryo Shot, but of course it could be tweaked.

[Jamescell]

The chain reaction effect on Cryo Shot could be removed to balance the ability?

[LasersGoPewPew]

Cryo Shot sounds awesome, way better than *freeze*,

 

Glacial Flare sounds like it would be an amazing CC ability (which frost has no CC powers as of yet)

 

Snow Globe: i think your suggestions for globe are fair, it gives artificial god mode to everyone/thing in it, isn't that the equivalent of the invulnerability that the devs purposefully removed? i agree with reducing the damage dealt by enemy bullet change. but also, what if all shots fire from within dealt some ice damage? turn it into a 360 degree electric shield of doom. (functionality wise).

Edited August 11, 2013 by LasersGoPewPew

[Jamescell]

I think the issue is making this happen, I'm not sure the DEV's want to take the effort to make this happen, they tend to do less than the minimum the community asks of them in terms of Warframe buffs or balances. Look at ash, a month after popular demand they only partially have buffed him at a cost of armor.

[Teknique0]

+1 for all your ideas and make avalanche keep it's targets freezed like in the dojo for about 10 seconds. That compensates it's weak damage that can't kill a lvl25 grineer.

Edited August 12, 2013 by Teknique0

[Eisvogel]

I think this is a nice way to try and balance Frost OP defensive capabilities while bringing up his offensive/cc power.

 

Some notes:

 

Cryo shot is definitely way way way too much, completely on uber skill level. Something like that should replace his uber in any case, it's definitely not a skill 1..... to me, all first skills that deal damage are worthless..... maybe Venom and Shuriken...... but still..... And you should remove the "pod" interaction, there's nothing like it atm and it will probably be complex to add that kind of interaction in the game so you should scrap that for the moment. If you wanna keep the power, you should consider making it the uber instead..... if not, you should severely lower the effects, power and remove chaining.

 

The globe idea is nice and fair. Another option you could explore, is keeping the complete nullification of damage but make it so that the globe withstands only up to a fixed damage cap..... shattering after that (upon shattering, it could send of ice dealing damage and freezing nearby enemies)

[NalkorRN]

This is an updated version of my last post, the second ability has changed, the first has a new side effect, and I have added a re-balance for Snow Globe.

The DEV's have said that they want all frames on Nova and Vauban's level, here's is a way to hopefully do that with frost. I wouldn't like to call this a rework because when people hear rework they think it means taking their frame into a radically different direction, and forcing the player to re-familiarize themselves with the frame afterwards. This is not a rework in that sense, I am to add cohesion to the Frost Warframe. Frost should be one of the next down the line of Warframe improvements, especially because there is a prime version, and who wants a mediocre prime?

Ability 1 Upgrade, Cryo Shot: Frost imbues his ammunition with a sub-zero freezing agent, and for the duration of the ability all bullets shot will freeze enemies in a transparent coating of ice. If an enemy is killed while frozen, the frozen enemy will explode, dealing no damage but instead freezing other enemies or resetting the freeze timer of already frozen enemies. Ammunition when active with this ability does 100% freeze damage. Shooting bullets at a Cryo-Pod while Cryo Shot is active cover the pod in a layer of ice, increasing the regeneration rate of the pod while the ability is active. This is the start to upgrading frost out of the 2 skill frame category he is currently in. A much more useful, unique and expressive ability for a well rounded Frost. Lets face it, his first ability is really just a single target long duration stun, which is only useful if you are playing a mission way out of your league and come across a heavy unit.

Ability 2 Redo, Glacial Flare: Frost channels a swirling wind of ice looking energy around himself for three seconds while drawing back one arm, then dissipates the surrounding energy channel by slamming a fist into the ground, sending a blast of ice 360 degrees around where his fist hits. Frozen shards would do a small amount of ice damage and hurl enemies far away from the casting zone, pinning them on contact with any surface, much like Excalibur's radial javelin, but this would affect all enemies, dead or alive, unlike radial javelin. The pin would have a medium duration, when maxed without mods around 8 seconds, but the impact of the blast would have high velocity, sending enemies flying. The ability would only be usable when no enemies from previous casts are pinned, preventing crowd control spamming. Because of the pin timer, it wouldn't cost much energy. Also, the cool-down timer acts as a balance between it and Snow Globe, the higher Frost's ability duration, the longer Snow Globe lasts, but the longer this abilities cool-down lasts. This would allow Frost to have a hybrid of a utility/ crowd-control ability, working in perfect unison with his snow globe.

Ability 3 Re-balance, Snow Globe: Snow Globe does not totally block all incoming damage, but instead greatly reduces it. This prevents Snow Globe from keeping players alive no matter what. If the player is severely outranked and outnumbered dying is a possibility now. Another re-balance add-on that could be viable is a outgoing damage de-buff. All damage from projectiles originating from inside the Snow Globe would be reduced by a small amount, maybe around five percent? Tenno should also be able to shoot into the Snow Globe, as the can shoot out of it.

F*** off, Snowglobe remains the same. I deleted Rhino after Iron Skin was no longer invulnerability for 19 seconds (Continuity, yay) and at least with Frost's Snowglobe I am supremely appreciated in Grineer/Corpus defense. Why? Grineer are full of @(*()$ aimbots who'd tear the objective apart in seconds without fully blocking the non-hitscan attacks. I don't trust half my teams to stick around and protect the pod/terminal with me half the time. Sometimes I get surprised but still no.

People love Snowglobe because the objectives are as durable as an unranked Loki on Pluto and babysitting them sucks without something to help make it easier. Even then, you still need to pay constant attention for anything that can get inside or RailgunMOAs who have that attack which completely bypasses the Snowglobe and one-shots the objective, insta-failing the mission.

[Jamescell]

F*** off, Snowglobe remains the same. I deleted Rhino after Iron Skin was no longer invulnerability for 19 seconds (Continuity, yay) and at least with Frost's Snowglobe I am supremely appreciated in Grineer/Corpus defense. Why? Grineer are full of @(*()$ aimbots who'd tear the objective apart in seconds without fully blocking the non-hitscan attacks. I don't trust half my teams to stick around and protect the pod/terminal with me half the time. Sometimes I get surprised but still no.

People love Snowglobe because the objectives are as durable as an unranked Loki on Pluto and babysitting them sucks without something to help make it easier. Even then, you still need to pay constant attention for anything that can get inside or RailgunMOAs who have that attack which completely bypasses the Snowglobe and one-shots the objective, insta-failing the mission.

Yeah life's so hard with Snow Globe.. all of those rail-gun Moas are just going to overrun us because they spawn so often and there's no way to see them coming -_- are you trying to say Snow Globe isn't a broken ability because one unit can get to you? And yeah.. Warframe is so hard.. we can't keep enemies off the pod with all our OTHER abilities and guns. The possibility of dying while inside Snow Globe is just outrageous!

[Jamescell]

Hopefully the new Cryo shot suits the ability one slot more.

[Eisvogel]

Hopefully the new Cryo shot suits the ability one slot more.

 

It seems a bit more adequate... but i think the main problem, it's the frozen thing. You really need to establish an estimated duration and if it would be affected by duration mods. Because if it lasts long, it's outright very very OP.... you could just as easily get a rapid fire primary and keep every enemy at bay frozen without doing anything... that's beyond dreamy for a 1st skill.

 

Also you could use this as an alternative to globe balancing:

 

 

-snip-

 

The globe idea is nice and fair. Another option you could explore, is keeping the complete nullification of damage but make it so that the globe withstands only up to a fixed damage cap..... shattering after that (upon shattering, it could send of ice dealing damage and freezing nearby enemies)

[PaperAlien]

Frost would become much more viable simply by fixing armour scaling, and changing the scaling of damage powers. I disagree with removing Snowglobe's 100% protection from outside. Instead, it should reduce damage that comes from the inside by a certain percentage (for example 50%, could be less when upgraded), so it still offers a completely safe sanctuary, but you have an incentive to not go in so you can do more damage.

[NalkorRN]

How about just leaving Snowglobe the hell alone? Seriously, I do not trust DE with their balancing. It'll end up just like Iron Skin. Cool at low levels, a death sentence at high levels.

[Jamescell]

@NalkorRN try using Rhinos other abilities, it might help.

@Paper Alien... I'm glad you read my full post. I said both things you just suggested.

@Eisvogel the goal for Warframe redo's is to get each frame up to tier with Nova or Vauban, both well rounded frames with more or less useful abilities.

I added durations for Cryo shot, but that's as far as I'm going. Hopefully you can enjoy the ability without complaining it's too op now that you know the estimated duration times intended.

[NalkorRN]

@NalkorRN try using Rhinos other abilities, it might help.

@Paper Alien... I'm glad you read my full post. I said both things you just suggested.

@Eisvogel the goal for Warframe redo's is to get each frame up to tier with Nova or Vauban, both well rounded frames with more or less useful abilities.

I added durations for Cryo shot, but that's as far as I'm going. Hopefully you can enjoy the ability without complaining it's too op now that you know the estimated duration times intended.

I got rid of Rhino to keep Excalibur and Ash to make room for Frost because even now, Mastery Ranks don't give extra slots (DESteve said every 4 Mastery ranks for 1 warframe slot, 2 ranks for 1 weapon slot).

[Jamescell]

So your complaint is pretty much based on the fact that you aren't competent enough to take a hit on Frost's god bubble? I'm not understanding the intent of the post above.

[NalkorRN]

So your complaint is pretty much based on the fact that you aren't competent enough to take a hit on Frost's god bubble? I'm not understanding the intent of the post above.

Given how the defense objective never scales up and how Grineer (mostly) use hit-scans on top of aim-bots and the occasional Mine Osprey that gets through, it can be tedious enough to keep the objective alive. Especially when everyone else has flocked to the ends of the map where everything spawns. It's why people hate it whenever a Loki uses Radial Disarm against Grineer. They'll lose their guns sure, but they'll all rush the pod and their melee damage can still one-shot the generator.

Until DE can get around to adjusting high level enemies to be difficult beyond super-lethal bullet sponges and make the artifacts not so hideously frail, I prefer that Snow Globe be left the hell alone.

The cheating AI is what makes me want Snow Globe to be left alone. That's it. I personally hate playing Frost in Endless Defense because everyone kills so far away from the pod, leaving me to run around and collect things every 4 waves (every 5th wave I'm forced to suck in and potentially lose mods and resources) because as a Frost player, my hip has to be attached to the objective almost all the time. If Snow Globe was changed, I wouldn't be forced to play as him in Endless/Mobile Defense missions, but at the same time, I don't want it changed when the AI is either laughably weak (low levels) or straight-up mind-numbingly tedious (high levels) because we have no idea how long it will take DE to make legitimately challenging enemies, if at all.

edit: also, 50% resistance is nowhere near useful at high levels. That just means it takes an Elite Grineer Lancer two pulls of the trigger on a Burston than one to destroy the pod. Again, boiling down to how much enemy armor (Effective Hit Points) and damage scale. It's why Vauban is all but required on Infested Endless defense, Nyx too. Even then, melee units like rollers and scorpions will flood the pod if given the chance.

Oh, and I laugh a little when an Ogris user kills themselves on my Snow Globe, they should move inside the radius of the globe to avoid it.

Edited August 13, 2013 by NalkorRN

[Eisvogel]

-snip-

 

So your argument is for the sake of keeping a frame a MUST HAVE broken combo? I hardly think that validates your point, let alone even make it worth considering.

 

Anyhow, you are mistaken about objective (defense pod)... it actually scales now since a previous update. Shields and health scale up with waves at this moment.

[NalkorRN]

So your argument is for the sake of keeping a frame a MUST HAVE broken combo? I hardly think that validates your point, let alone even make it worth considering.

 

Anyhow, you are mistaken about objective (defense pod)... it actually scales now since a previous update. Shields and health scale up with waves at this moment.

It would be nice if we could see actual numbers and not a percentage. Once the AI is buffed in terms of, well, AI and their damage/armor stats are lowered to compensate, then I'd be all for changing Snow Globe.

I know it scales, but with how many enemies end up swarming it in the later levels, it's still a bad idea to let damage through.

I've seen Nova's damage numbers, Vauban's... Rhino Stomp Grenade (forget the name), Nyx's World of Chaos, and Saryn's Miasma. Don't go telling me Snow Globe is the god globe.

[Shamse]

Honestly, Vauban and Nova area already very OP frames, so worrying about balance isn't much of an issue at this point. It's worrying about game-breaking moves that devs have to think about, like pre-nerf Chaos- that's just game breaking.