Lets fix Zephyr once and for all

[Caelward]

25 minutes ago, helioth137 said:

How about buffing divebomb so it's damage is scaled based on your melee damage ?

And making an augment or simply an alternate skill mode for 2; air burst... air suction... like how you can switch arrows for ivara you now get 2 skills... the first one rag dolls away... the second pulls in.

The last thing I feel like she needs is some group utility, or a skill which makes enemies more vulnerable to damage.

Buffing divebomb or doing anything to improve it is something we were screaming for for literal years.

Instead they all but buried it within tailwind, so I guess actually buffing divebomb was never on the table.

[Birdframe_Prime]

15 hours ago, ObviousLee said:

Incidentally, my tailwind rework offers you exactly what you want. 

Except a heck of a lot extra that, if you look at my earlier comment, not the one replying to another post, will mean that DE will completely overlook what I want and see only what you want out of it and leave it exactly as it is.

The mix is made, they aren't going to add in anything more, only tweak what we have. And that's not going to happen either when all the feedback is just asking for complete ability shifts like this.

[blacklusterseph]

I don't think any 'fix' of significance is coming for Zephyr.Almost every Warframe youtuber I've seen discuss the prime, has a raging erection for how Zephyr currently works. In addition, I think the bump to the Zephyr playerbase is actually primarily players that are using her to cheese the Plains of Eidolon. None of those players are going to say a word about changing anything to do with Zephyr since mum's the word when it comes to cheese strats. Given that I don't see feedback acheiving anything right now. It would probably be more productive to look into submitting a new warframe concept that is inspired by Zephyr but does the things that we have been looking for that Zephyr will never do.

[Vanrythzx]

zephyr in her current state is just a annoyance.

[EchoesOfRain]

3 hours ago, blacklusterseph said:

I don't think any 'fix' of significance is coming for Zephyr.Almost every Warframe youtuber I've seen discuss the prime, has a raging erection for how Zephyr currently works. In addition, I think the bump to the Zephyr playerbase is actually primarily players that are using her to cheese the Plains of Eidolon. None of those players are going to say a word about changing anything to do with Zephyr since mum's the word when it comes to cheese strats. Given that I don't see feedback acheiving anything right now. It would probably be more productive to look into submitting a new warframe concept that is inspired by Zephyr but does the things that we have been looking for that Zephyr will never do.

Pretty much this. I really don't understand how people are so okay with her current state. *launches herself clear of the simulacrum* "Yea her Tailwind is much better than it used to be"

They clearly never tried using her in the Tile-sets..."Why would you even think about bringing Zephyr to Tile-sets?" Like, what? Sorry for actually wanting to enjoy Zephyr on anywhere that's not the Plains?

Or "Funnel Clouds are so OP look at this sh**!" when showing off funnel clouds in  very controlled environment...realistically they'll never be as reliable as you want them to be.

 

This is honestly very frustrating right now. Zephyr's problems are so clear, I don't understand how these people keep missing them and trying to justify that Zephyr is "so good" right now. 

 

__________________

On another note, how would you guys feel if Tailwind/Divebomb actually did good damage? Would it be too much for zephyr? Would it help put her in line with other good frames?

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, EchoesOfRain said:

On another note, how would you guys feel if Tailwind/Divebomb actually did good damage? Would it be too much for zephyr? Would it help put her in line with other good frames?

Funnily enough, Dive Bomb's damage was doubled and seems to actually scale a little better. My Jetstream build of 155% Strength usually outright kills things at level 30-40 now, if I have a decent height, which it flat couldn't before.

On the other hand, it was never really about the damage. I'm personally very pleased that Tailwind now actually knocks down enemies as you go, but it's largely useless unless it's right at the end of your run (something I predicted... not to toot my own horn there...), so... I guess what I'm saying is that none of the things that actual Zephyr players really wanted out of a rework actually happened.

[TKDancer]

27 minutes ago, Thaylien said:

Funnily enough, Dive Bomb's damage was doubled and seems to actually scale a little better. My Jetstream build of 155% Strength usually outright kills things at level 30-40 now, if I have a decent height, which it flat couldn't before.

On the other hand, it was never really about the damage. I'm personally very pleased that Tailwind now actually knocks down enemies as you go, but it's largely useless unless it's right at the end of your run (something I predicted... not to toot my own horn there...), so... I guess what I'm saying is that none of the things that actual Zephyr players really wanted out of a rework actually happened.

i personally think it should scale with melee mods since the tailwind part is us slashing enemies with our arm... feathers? or maybe slashing with wind, and the divebomb is a fancy slam attack

 

this would prolly require some tweaking to base dmg and the augment however, as it should be more about softening enemies, or maybe for use in conjunction with tornados to spread the dmg

[Caelward]

1 hour ago, Thaylien said:

Funnily enough, Dive Bomb's damage was doubled and seems to actually scale a little better. My Jetstream build of 155% Strength usually outright kills things at level 30-40 now, if I have a decent height, which it flat couldn't before.

I never noticed past the giant usability nerf.

[Birdframe_Prime]

48 minutes ago, TKDancer said:

i personally think it should scale with melee mods

My personal pick was better scaling on the height multiplier. Currently you get a 0.3 x Height damage scaler, which means that at 15m you'd get only 5x damage. If you had even as much as a (0.1 Height) x (0.3 x Height) multiplier, then at 15m you would have a 7.5x multiplier.

17 minutes ago, Caelward said:

I never noticed past the giant usability nerf.

You stopped playing her by and large, as I hear it ^^

I genuinely had to test as much of her as I could, and one of the base points that I found genuinely surprising was that Dive Bomb now does a base 500 damage instead of 250.

[TKDancer]

13 minutes ago, Thaylien said:

My personal pick was better scaling on the height multiplier. Currently you get a 0.3 x Height damage scaler, which means that at 15m you'd get only 5x damage. If you had even as much as a (0.1 Height) x (0.3 x Height) multiplier, then at 15m you would have a 7.5x multiplier.

raw dmg would fall off badly vs armor unless we saw some HUGE multipliers , and my suggestion would make both forms of the skill do better dmg, while making interaction of tailwind/divebomb with tornado even more encouraged

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 minutes ago, TKDancer said:

raw dmg would fall off badly vs armor unless we saw some HUGE multipliers , and my suggestion would make both forms of the skill do better dmg, while making interaction of tailwind/divebomb with tornado even more encouraged

Even that damage would fall off, though. Dive Bomb, to me, has never been about the damage itself. Dive Bomb was all about the knock down, and why that knock down was so ineffective because it couldn't affect enemies doing weighted animations.

If you want scaling, then CC scales infinitely, and that's what I wanted to give Dive Bomb; completely upgrade the CC.

[TKDancer]

Just now, Thaylien said:

If you want scaling, then CC scales infinitely, and that's what I wanted to give Dive Bomb; completely upgrade the CC.

fair but the old argument of "death is best cc" applies here, plus tornado is her big CC skill(which also needs some tweaking imo so its better at holding enemies instead of throwing them away)

 

 

i dont want tailwind to one-shot level sortie 3 enemies or anything, i just want tailwind to be about as strong as a hit from a well modded meele weapon, and adding elemental dmg would encourage interaction with our tornados

[ObviousLee]

I'm actually with Thaylien on the situation about divebomb doing damage over cc. She's a mobility/cc centric frame, and granted I'm pleased with her being able to do a significant amount of damage via tornadoes, I'm kinda iffy on the idea of shifting more and more of her kit towards dps over cc.

[NeithanDiniem]

31 minutes ago, ObviousLee said:

I'm actually with Thaylien on the situation about divebomb doing damage over cc. She's a mobility/cc centric frame, and granted I'm pleased with her being able to do a significant amount of damage via tornadoes, I'm kinda iffy on the idea of shifting more and more of her kit towards dps over cc.

Probably the best way to go about it then is to make it scale off of your current speed at least. You have two speeds in your suggestion for tailwind, and moving faster would have a larger impact on colliding with things. Speed could cause slash damage increase/addition when sprinting while in Tailwind, and Divebomb can gain impact and more CC force.

Making it scale off of melee mods however I would suggest against. This is a primary skill that is already giving you a lot of mobility and CC, and putting too much into a skill is just asking for it to be ignored by the devs. As said above one can already build for strength and make Divebomb deal decent damage, and since your suggestion has Divebomb be more applicable, you will already be dealing more damage over the course of a Tailwind cast alongside the sprinting.

Essentially, take the inch offered and don't try to demand the mile. They are unlikely to give you either if you do so.

[fartloud]

Yeah Zephyr is really questionable for most of the game.

Her passive is also really obnoxious. Why cant we have unlimited glide or something. Like it would matter in the grand scale of things to have something potentially fun.

[Birdframe_Prime]

3 hours ago, fartloud said:

Like it would matter in the grand scale of things to have something potentially fun.

Subjective. Her passive is immensely fun to me, and around 60% of the people writing threads for her over the past year and a half ^^

[ObviousLee]

4 hours ago, fartloud said:

Yeah Zephyr is really questionable for most of the game.

Her passive is also really obnoxious. Why cant we have unlimited glide or something. Like it would matter in the grand scale of things to have something potentially fun.

Thaylien has a point here. Majority of players like the passive, of which I'm one of them. 

[EchoesOfRain]

On 3/24/2018 at 3:45 PM, Thaylien said:

On the other hand, it was never really about the damage. I'm personally very pleased that Tailwind now actually knocks down enemies as you go, but it's largely useless unless it's right at the end of your run (something I predicted... not to toot my own horn there...), so... I guess what I'm saying is that none of the things that actual Zephyr players really wanted out of a rework actually happened.

 

Alright, so how about this suggestion...I assume we'd be getting a hold-to-cast Hover, since its a simple change and many of us seem to be pretty okay with that change. Now let's also keep this charging mechanic Tailwind currently has, but allowing us to move freely while charging. Charging will now create a sort of Wind Aura around Zephyr, enlarging the aura the longer it's charged. Once Zephyr releases Tailwind, she will dash forward as usual, with the Wind Aura following her along. If enemies are touched by this aura, they will be put in a suspended state and dragged along Zephyr's flight path. If Zephyr charges into a Divebomb instead, enemies around the landing point are simply suspended into the air.

 

That could make Tailwind more useful for CC and feel more powerful. Zephyr would be able to throw enemies off level boundries, kinda like the sonicor lol. Personally, I'd also like some slash procs with this idea, adding just another touch of damage without straight up being a damage dealing skill, but it's just an idea

[ObviousLee]

1 hour ago, EchoesOfRain said:

 

Alright, so how about this suggestion...I assume we'd be getting a hold-to-cast Hover, since its a simple change and many of us seem to be pretty okay with that change. Now let's also keep this charging mechanic Tailwind currently has, but allowing us to move freely while charging. Charging will now create a sort of Wind Aura around Zephyr, enlarging the aura the longer it's charged. Once Zephyr releases Tailwind, she will dash forward as usual, with the Wind Aura following her along. If enemies are touched by this aura, they will be put in a suspended state and dragged along Zephyr's flight path. If Zephyr charges into a Divebomb instead, enemies around the landing point are simply suspended into the air.

 

That could make Tailwind more useful for CC and feel more powerful. Zephyr would be able to throw enemies off level boundries, kinda like the sonicor lol. Personally, I'd also like some slash procs with this idea, adding just another touch of damage without straight up being a damage dealing skill, but it's just an idea

I have some thoughts about why this might not be the best approach, but I'm at work so I won't have time to actually flesh out what I want to say and adding to that I don't want my response to be knee-jerk reactions. I'll marinate on this and get back to you after my shift ends later tonight at nine. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

12 hours ago, EchoesOfRain said:

That could make Tailwind more useful for CC and feel more powerful.

My thought out response to this is actually part of an old thread. And it's something that took me a long time to realise, but here's the gist of it;

Tailwind was, as it was back before the rework, at the limit of how it could be improved without giving it a function like a hover. Why? Because the primary source of its power is the movement, not how it can affect enemies. Even now, with the improvements given, the Tailwind part of the ability is still pretty much at its limit. Giving it Dive Bomb on the same cast is kind of an improvement, but only because you've gotten the space for a second ability, when Dive Bomb had the potential to be a 1 ability all on its own. I'm actually not even counting the hover as it is, because the current implementation of it is basically a separate cast entirely; you have to not be in the air, you have to be stationary, you have to wait and charge it. The current hover does not actually tie in with the rest of the ability and is largely ignorable as a function because of it.

The ability to stop in mid-air by re-casting or hold-casting? That would be an improvement in mobility (not movement, mobility) because it allows momentum cancelling, mid-air re-aiming and so on.

But here's the rub... Tailwind can't actually do anything worthwhile to enemies without some serious actual effects. I wish it were another way, but the base problem is that Tailwind will take you from point A to point B very fast, and it won't stop in between without some kind of braking movement, which is a shame I know. So what could Tailwind possibly do to enemies that would actually be still applicable to them when you've finished your Tailwind cast? Because there isn't much, really...

Damage? Falls off against enemy scaling very quickly. Has to be limited due to the ability to hit multiple enemies in a line of attack (hence the augment Target Fixation... which I still haven't been able to use as intended...), but also has to be limited because it's a 1 cast. Also, Zephyr is not supposed to be a damage frame, only a 'potential damage' frame, so...

Enemy debuffs? Apply a proc? Possible, actually, depending on which one. Viral wouldn't last long enough, because you'll be too far away, same with Blast or Impact, Fire, Toxin and most of the rest... But a Confusion proc? That might work. Jet through a group and set them all to attacking each other? That could work. Situationally.

Buffs? Not really, you would have to dash through your team, and that's already a little subjective, besides in any kind of fight where you'd be actually buffing players, this would then place you very far out of position and have to come back, while you could have been doing anything actually useful to your team, such as killing things.

CC? The only CC I found that would really, really encourage players to Tailwind through a group of enemies would be a Suspend. Like the Exodia Epidemic Zaw enhancement, where you suspend enemies in a line of attack, but along the length of the cast, and the Suspend lasts 4-5 seconds from the end of the cast (so that all enemies are caught for at least that long, and enemies don't escape it before you have time to turn around and come back). Again, a situational one, and more useful for anyone else following behind you than it is for you casting it.

Which is why in other threads I concentrated on buffing Dive Bomb to do all of those things instead.

If Dive Bomb applied elemental procs, think how good that would be with a Condition Overload weapon... Or if it suspended enemies briefly, leaving the ragdoll CC to Airburst, that would be awesome too. How about if the Hover could be charged while moving, even in the air, and had the bonus that if you cast it on the ground, it lifted enemies in a short range with you so you could shoot or melee them in the air while they're suspended?

All of these very useful effects exist, but... Tailwind itself isn't the ability to apply them on. Tailwind is genuinely for the mobility, especially with the way they've changed it now...

[fartloud]

On 3/25/2018 at 7:27 PM, Thaylien said:

Subjective. Her passive is immensely fun to me, and around 60% of the people writing threads for her over the past year and a half ^^

ye getting stuck like a moth around doorways is fantastic

[TKDancer]

39 minutes ago, fartloud said:

ye getting stuck like a moth around doorways is fantastic

 

On 3/25/2018 at 1:27 PM, Thaylien said:

Subjective.

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

42 minutes ago, fartloud said:

ye getting stuck like a moth around doorways is fantastic

This is where the concept of 'aiming your movement functions', 'adjusting your timing' and general concepts of 'learning the movement' comes into play. The only times I get actually stuck around a door these days are when I badly aim a Tailwind from across the tile.

The rest of her movement I've figured out how to exploit to the point where my Jet Stream build out-distances a Speed Volt in most tiles, because I can do things like curve around corners where another frame would have to land and then change direction, reach higher places that another frame would have to climb, and when I need to I can actually use Tailwind to cross the longest tiles in the game nearly instantly. The only thing that can out-pace me in tilesets is a Warp Nova, and the only thing that can out-pace me on the Plains is an Itzal.

Then again, this is purely because I took the time to actually use Zephyr, rather than tried it for a few days and went back to another frame. That, and also to figure out what routes through the different tiles are better for Zephyr than other frames, or what ones work for other frames that don't work for Zephyr.

Zephyr's movement is fun for me. Warframe's movement system is fun for me. I use it to the fullest whenever and whatever frame I'm playing.

[ObviousLee]

On 3/25/2018 at 1:09 PM, EchoesOfRain said:

 

Alright, so how about this suggestion...I assume we'd be getting a hold-to-cast Hover, since its a simple change and many of us seem to be pretty okay with that change. Now let's also keep this charging mechanic Tailwind currently has, but allowing us to move freely while charging. Charging will now create a sort of Wind Aura around Zephyr, enlarging the aura the longer it's charged. Once Zephyr releases Tailwind, she will dash forward as usual, with the Wind Aura following her along. If enemies are touched by this aura, they will be put in a suspended state and dragged along Zephyr's flight path. If Zephyr charges into a Divebomb instead, enemies around the landing point are simply suspended into the air.

 

That could make Tailwind more useful for CC and feel more powerful. Zephyr would be able to throw enemies off level boundries, kinda like the sonicor lol. Personally, I'd also like some slash procs with this idea, adding just another touch of damage without straight up being a damage dealing skill, but it's just an idea

Ok it's a little(lot) bit later than I'd intended but here goes: I can only really see an issue with the slash proc potentially as it's starting to make tailwind do too much. If tailwind allowed for continuous flight+directional divebomb ragdoll+target fixation+slash proc......that's just too much for one ability. Especially considering that all one would have to do is use target fixation and build up TW damage to the point of slash proccing enemies to death just by virtue of passing them. That's way too powerful for what I'm going for in this rework suggestion.

 

If anything, should tailwind be reworked to what I have suggested I'd go so far as to say making it the new second or third ability and putting air burst as the new first. just kinda shift things down the line as it were. As I said in the OP, maybe give air burst a slash proc as it passes through enemies, and implosion on collision with hard surfaces to drag enemies together, but adding a slash proc to a mobility skill seems like not the right decision to make.

[Naftal]

Before the rework, Tail Wind used to be cancellable mid-animation by sliding. This worked really well and let long duration builds use shorter dashes.

I really hope this could be returned.

Also, years ago, tornadoes used to lift you up if you slide in the air near them. I'd really like to see this coming back as well.